tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/freedom-charter-18145/articlesFreedom Charter – The Conversation2019-05-01T09:42:28Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1157352019-05-01T09:42:28Z2019-05-01T09:42:28ZRace still colours South Africa's politics 25 years after apartheid's end<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271723/original/file-20190430-136787-1gxpztv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">African National Congress supporters at the party&#39;s manifesto launch. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Epa/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It would be surprising if race played no part in South African elections. The country’s colonial and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> past ranked alongside the <a href="https://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/what.htm">America’s Deep South</a> as among the most racist social orders in the world. If religious polarisation is also considered, South Africa often compared with <a href="https://socialistworker.org/2008/11/24/struggle-in-northern-ireland">Northern Ireland</a> and the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/aren-europeans-calling-israel-apartheid-state-190410081102849.html">Israel-Palestine</a> conflict.</p>
<p>The slogan <a href="http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/3761/thesis_tshawane_n.pdf">“rainbow nation”</a> seems to have retired along with Anglican archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu. Personal racist incidents still <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/coffin-assault-judgment-will-be-lesson-for-racists-mlotshwa-20170825">make the headlines</a> and class remains hued by colour at the structural level. Although slightly over half of the country’s middle class is now black, deep poverty is an almost exclusively <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02589346.2012.656912">a black experience</a>.</p>
<p>Race continues to divide. Take just the best-known parties among the four dozen contesting the country’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africans-go-to-the-polls-in-may-what-you-need-to-know-113418">general election this month</a>. They all represent radically different perspectives on the race issue. And – at the extremes – there is no crossing the colour line. </p>
<p>For example, almost no black Africans will vote for the minority <a href="https://www.vfplus.org.za/">Freedom Front Plus</a>. Almost no whites will vote for the Economic Freedom Fighters <a href="http://www.effonline.org/Home">(EFF)</a>, the third-largest party. Strident racial rhetoric from some EFF leaders. And its <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/the-effs-2019-election-manifesto-iv">election manifesto</a> envisages for massive tax rises, a proviso that’s alienated white voters. For its part, the Freedom Front Plus’s campaign to <a href="https://www.vfplus.org.za/2019-election-manifesto">defend minorities</a> against affirmative action and <a href="https://www.thedti.gov.za/economic_empowerment/bee_sector_charters.jsp">black economic empowerment</a> doesn’t attract many black voters.</p>
<p>But, when moving towards the leading parties of the centre, the governing African National Congress <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/">(ANC)</a>, and the official opposition, the <a href="https://www.da.org.za/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4em9oNfZ4QIV2oXVCh0xJQRfEAAYASAAEgJeCvD_BwE">Democratic Alliance (DA)</a>, are making serious efforts to reign in racial rhetoric among their leaders and members. They also have manifestos that promote non-racialism.</p>
<h2>Non-racialism</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/01/12/must-read-the-anc-s-2019-elections-manifesto">ANC</a> and <a href="http://politicsweb.co.za/documents/the-da-manifesto-2019">DA</a> documents and speeches have repeated their long-held goals of non-racialism. Both try to ensure that people of all colours are represented in their executive structures.</p>
<p>Recently, ANC veterans condemned a statement by their powerful secretary-general urging a vote against <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/politics/2118030/anc-veterans-slam-magashule-for-outrageous-racial-utterances-about-whites/">“whites” and for “blacks”</a>. And the party’s election campaign, particularly in Gauteng and the Western Cape, chooses issues and rhetoric which include white voters.</p>
<p>The DA too has more than once disciplined leaders, or got members to resign, because of <a href="https://rekordcenturion.co.za/60851/da-mp-apologises-for-racist-facebook-post">racial comments</a> on twitter or elsewhere </p>
<p>At a deeper level, the DA is attempting a strategy so difficult that it has only been accomplished twice before in South Africa’s history. The party seeks to change from an overwhelmingly white party to a predominantly black party. The South African Communist Party achieved this <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-african-communist-party-sacp">during the 1920s</a>. The Liberal Party followed a similar path <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/liberal-party-south-africa-lpsa">during the 1960s</a>.</p>
<p>Historically, the ANC’s <a href="http://www.historicalpapers.wits.ac.za/inventories/inv_pdfo/AD1137/AD1137-Ea6-1-001-jpeg.pdf">Freedom Charter</a> affirmed that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The ANC’s alliances from the 1950s included organisations centred on <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Coloured">coloured</a> – people of both European (white) and African (black) ancestry - , Indian, and white members. It incrementally opened its own membership to supporters of all colours before 1990.</p>
<p>At times, a few commentators have criticised the ANC as being dominated by either <a href="https://hsf.org.za/publications/focus/issue-8-third-quarter-1997/the-truth-about-the-xhosa-nostra">isiXhosa speakers</a> or <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/books-llc-nguni-languages/hhfl-1256-g140">Nguni language speakers</a>, but these complaints found little traction. The ANC’s membership embraced a nation-wide representivity among black Africans, and included <a href="https://hsf.org.za/publications/focus/issue-8-third-quarter-1997/the-truth-about-the-xhosa-nostra">activists from all of the race-based definitions entrenched during apartheid</a>.</p>
<p>Strategically, the ANC is the only African nationalist party that has had to accommodate – in policy and rhetoric – a <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/lifestyle/189135/south-africas-white-population-shrinks-even-further-in-2017/">significant white minority</a>.</p>
<p>More than nine-tenths of white settlers fled Algeria <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2524278">after independence in 1962</a>; the same in Angola and Mozambique following independence <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4185453?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">in 1974</a>. This also happened in Zimbabwe between the <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/whites-flee-zimbabwe-in-droves-216882">1980s-1990s</a>. White Algerians had the right to French citizenship; white Angolans and Mozambicans had the right to Portuguese citizenship. Over half White Zimbabweans had the right to either South African or British citizenship. </p>
<p>By contrast, the overwhelming majority of white South Africans have no rights to other citizenships.</p>
<h2>The people</h2>
<p>White South Africans are only make up <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0302/P03022018.pdf">7,8%</a> of the population. But they remain strategically important. They still own most capital and <a href="http://theconversation.com/white-people-in-south-africa-still-hold-the-lions-share-of-all-forms-of-capital-75510">most companies</a>. They constitute a significant proportion of management and in <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/121632/these-4-graphs-will-change-your-thinking-on-employment-in-sa/">most of the professions</a>.</p>
<p>The western powers, investors, and media remain sensitive to their concerns and anxieties.</p>
<p>Interestingly, statistics show that white living standards have risen higher than anyone else’s <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Economy/white-south-africans-have-best-quality-of-life-irr-20170508">since 1994</a>. That is not exactly the <a href="https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/myth-white-genocide">“genocide”</a> proclaimed by the global alt-right.</p>
<p>There is a wide range of black views on colour and race relations. Some activists in the Rhodes-must-fall and Fees-must-fall <a href="https://www.academia.edu/31837026/An_analysis_of_the_FeesMustFall_Movement_at_South_African_Universities">movements</a> expressed total alienation from whites and “whiteness”. Simultaneously, there are many interracial friendships and some interracial marriages.</p>
<h2>Tensions bound to remain</h2>
<p>The world’s oldest democracy, the US, and the world’s largest democracy, India, also have to grapple with the contradictions between nonracial or non-caste ideals in their constitutions, and affirmative action and preferential procurement laws and regulations.</p>
<p>In South Africa, similar issues continue to be addressed by a host of institutions. These range from the <a href="https://www.sahrc.org.za/">Human Rights Commission,</a> to the <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/eqcact/eqc_main.html">Equality Court</a> and similar quasi-judicial entities, in addition to test cases decided by the <a href="https://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/an-embarrassing-mistake-from-the-constitutional-court/">Constitutional Court.</a>.</p>
<p>Given that the country has the world’s largest white minority living under black rule, colour line tensions will remain a fairly permanent feature of the country’s political landscape. The same can be said of the US, where the world’s largest black minority lives under white rule.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115735/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is an ANC member, but writes this article in his professional capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>South Africa has the world’s largest white minority living under black rule.Colour line tensions might remain a feature of the country's political landscape.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1156552019-04-24T08:57:35Z2019-04-24T08:57:35ZFreedom Day in South Africa -- a reminder of unfinished business<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270439/original/file-20190423-175535-12tuhmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many South Africans have yet to see freedom bear fruit.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africans celebrate <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/freedom-day-27-april">Freedom Day</a> on April 27 every year to mark the country’s first democratic elections in 1994. A quarter of a century later, though, questions remain: how much and whose freedom is to be celebrated? </p>
<p>The differing answers among voters might affect the results of the national elections on <a href="https://www.elections.org.za/content/About-Us/IEC-Events/2019-National-and-Provincial-Elections/">May 8</a>. </p>
<p>South Africans can still not celebrate freedom from want. They are painfully aware that one cannot eat democracy. Formal political equality is rightly celebrated as an achievement by those who suffered under dictatorship, minority rule and other forms of oppressive regimes that denied them basic rights. But democracy doesn’t put food on the table. Nor does it provide decent shelter or secure a dignified living.</p>
<p>Former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous <a href="http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/od4frees.html">1941 speech to Congress</a> identified four freedoms: those of speech, of worship, from want and from fear. </p>
<p>Freedom from want, [as he explained], </p>
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<p>means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants - everywhere in the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Acutely aware of this, the drafters of the <a href="http://www.historicalpapers.wits.ac.za/inventories/inv_pdfo/AD1137/AD1137-Ea6-1-001-jpeg.pdf">Freedom Charter</a> – which was adopted in 1955 by the African National Congress (ANC) that now governs South Africa, among other anti-apartheid activists – included far more than just <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-legacy-of-south-africas-freedom-charter-60-years-later-43647">political freedoms</a>. It also has the sharing of the country’s wealth among all people as a fundamental principle. </p>
<p>But these ideals, still considered a basic blueprint for the country, have – to a large extent – remained remote goals. </p>
<p>The South African Constitution is among the very few to recognise <a href="https://ossafrica.com/esst/index.php?title=Summary_of_the_Constitution_of_South_Africa%2C_no._108_of_1996#Section_26:_Right_of_Access_to_Housing">socio-economic rights</a> as human rights - including the right to food, health care, shelter, water and education. But there is a huge gap between setting norms and implementing them. </p>
<p>Today, South Africa is one of the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2015-09-30-is-south-africa-the-most-unequal-society-in-the-world">most consistently unequal</a> countries in the world. More than half the population <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=10334">lives in poverty</a>, while a staggering <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/unemployment-rate">27% of people are unemployed</a>. </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://eunomix.com">Eunomix</a>, which advises some of the biggest mining companies in the country, the past 12 years saw the country suffer more declines in its socio-economic and governance performance than any <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-17/south-africa-s-decline-worst-of-nations-not-at-war-model-shows">other nation that’s not at war</a>.</p>
<p>This is thanks largely to worsening corruption and policy paralysis during former President Jacob Zuma’s nine years in office. And, things are not about to get any better soon. </p>
<p>The country’s Reserve Bank has painted a gloomy picture of the country’s prospects for growth. This is thanks to rampant corruption, whose effects have been acutely felt at Eskom, the electricity utility, crippling the country’s power supply and <a href="https://www.resbank.co.za/Lists/News%20and%20Publications/Attachments/9206/Monetary%20Policy%20Review%20%E2%80%93%20April%202019.pdf">hobbling economic growth</a>.</p>
<h2>Discontent and disruption</h2>
<p>Freedom Day should be a forceful reminder of the democratic rights enshrined in the <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf">Constitution</a>. These include the right to free speech and to protest, basic human rights which were suppressed under centuries of colonial and apartheid rule.</p>
<p>The problem is that South Africa’s political culture today does not live up to the ideal the Constitution enshrines. There is a massive gap between declared norms and actual realities. </p>
<p>For example, in early April protesters from Alexandra township, one of Johannesburg’s poorest black settlements, were prevented by police from marching to Sandton, the adjacent, affluent suburb. In the same week rogue elements of the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/04/09/gangster-state-book-launch-disrupted-by-protesters">disrupted a book launch in the posh suburb</a>. They tore up copies of a<br>
book by an investigative journalist exposing the network of corruption allegedly overseen by the governing party’s secretary-general Ace Magashule, while he was the <a href="http://www.702.co.za/articles/344047/myburgh-dissects-his-book-gangster-state-unravelling-magashule-s-web-of-capture">premier of the Free State</a>. </p>
<p>The Youth League was later forced to abandon plans for a public burning of the book after the <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/dont-burn-books--anc">ANC intervened</a>. The party implored its members to </p>
<blockquote>
<p>protect the values and reputation of the ANC, by practising political tolerance and defending the rights enshrined in the Constitution.</p>
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<p>Such noble words, however, only point to the governing party’s inability to walk the talk. For example, when the ANC’s deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte was confronted with questions she did not like from a journalist who works for eNCA, an independent TV station. The question was about the party’s controversial proposed list of MPs. Duarte <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-04-02-editors-forum-stunned-by-jessie-duarte-attack-on-enca-journalist/">attacked the reporter</a>, fuming</p>
<blockquote>
<p>you don’t even have a right to exist as a TV station in <a href="https://twitter.com/AustiMan1/status/1113110511837741056">this country</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Much more to do</h2>
<p>On Freedom Day, South Africans might or should celebrate the fact that they have covered some distance on the road to freedom. But it will remain a long and winding road. As Raymond Suttner, an ANC liberation struggle hero who spent years in solitary confinement, <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-02-11-twenty-five-years-of-democracy-ruptures-and-continuities-part-1/">says
</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>even though elections with all people entitled to vote for the first time was a massive victory, freedom is never finally realised. … It needs to be seen as a concept with an indefinite scope and meaning.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Where there is no fight for it, there is no freedom. The end of minority regimes does not equate freedom. Liberation movements as governments are no guarantee of good governance ensuring equal rights and benefits for all. </p>
<p>New regimes often just create space for privileges to a new elite in cohorts with earlier vested interests. They do not live up to the promises made to the ordinary people. Rather, they disclose the limits to liberation.</p>
<p>The old slogan that the struggle continues – a luta continua – is as valid today as it was during the struggle for liberation. The difference is that others now have to carry the torch. </p>
<p>Maybe Freedom Day can serve as a reminder of such unfinished business.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115655/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber is a member of SWAPO in Namibia since 1974.</span></em></p>As South Africa marks 25 years of freedom, many citizens have to contend with the harsh reality that they can't eat democracy.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1034502018-09-18T14:05:02Z2018-09-18T14:05:02ZThe British Council's Mandela exhibition: history or corporate whitewash?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236874/original/file-20180918-158225-hlsmt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The &quot;Mandela and me&quot; exhibition includes posters from the Anti-Apartheid Movement&#39;s campaign.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.britishcouncil.org.za/events/mandela-and-me-exhibition-2018">“Mandela and Me”</a> exhibition at the British Council in London marks the centenary of Nelson Mandela’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/nelson-mandela-born">birth</a> in 1918. The exhibition is sponsored by <a href="http://www.angloamerican.com/">Anglo American</a>, the mining giant that was the biggest corporation in South Africa during apartheid and has, since 1999, been headquartered in London. </p>
<p>This corporate connection influences the narrative that is spun at the exhibition. For example, it completely ignores Anglo’s own role as a founder and principal beneficiary of both British colonial rule and later the apartheid regime.</p>
<p>A film shown as part of the exhibition features young South Africans relaying what Mandela means for them. They appear inspired. Yet, I couldn’t help feeling that this was an exercise in the construction of public memory that has connotations of manipulation. </p>
<p>The inter-generational theme is repeated in the form of Mandela’s image, constructed as a mosaic of young South African faces. There is also a section interspersing anti-apartheid movement placards with protest concerns today. </p>
<p>Choices have been made in this selection. The British Council building is just off Trafalgar Square, close to the South African embassy, the scene of a <a href="https://nonstopagainstapartheid.wordpress.com/">non-stop picket</a> to release Mandela and all political prisoners from April 1986 until just after Mandela’s release from prison in February 1990. The picket doesn’t bear a mention. </p>
<p>The exhibition shows video loops on Mandela’s life and apartheid. What’s missing is that Mandela was born into a British colony, founded after the second Anglo-Boer war to secure the country for immensely profitable gold and diamond mining interests. It was into this racial capitalism, already established 100 years ago, that Anglo American – the corporation – and Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela – the person – were born.</p>
<p>For most of the 20th century South Africans were ruled by the white minority. Their role was accepted by successive UK governments as long as profits flowed to the City of London (of which, again, no reference in the exhibition). </p>
<p>The narrative of black struggle against oppression has been co-opted. “Mandela and Me” applies another lick of paint to the ever thickening layers of corporate whitewash. </p>
<h2>Anglo’s 100 years</h2>
<p>In 2017 Anglo American celebrated its own centenary. The company’s <a href="http://www.angloamerican.com/about-us/history#/EN/category-complete-history/detail-anglo-american">story about itself</a> is unsurprisingly sanitised. You won’t find anything about colonial labour exploitation, or even apartheid. </p>
<p>What is the untold history? </p>
<p>In the middle of World War 1, Ernest Oppenheimer bought into goldfields that were being opened up on what was known as the Far East Rand. Anglo American was formed to attract US and UK finance. By 1928 Anglo was a middle ranking gold producer. In 1929 it took over the <a href="https://www.debeersgroup.com/">De Beers</a> diamond monopoly, and by 1958 it had become the biggest mining company, as academic Duncan Innes wrote in his <a href="http://disa.ukzn.ac.za/sites/default/files/pdf_files/LaJun85.0377.5429.010.007.Jun1985.28.pdf">seminal study</a>, “Anglo American and the Rise of Modern South Africa” (1984).</p>
<p>Anglo paid African workers industry standard rates, which were a tenth of white workers’ pay. Anglo’s affiliate De Beers had already built its diamond business by paying extreme poverty wages to migrant workers held in prison-like compounds, as Innes wrote. At the urging of mining magnate and prime minister of the Cape Colony, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/cecil-john-rhodes">Cecil John Rhodes</a>, the same labour system was transferred to the gold mines. </p>
<p>Mandela was born in the Eastern Cape, one of the labour reserve areas. Cheap labour required dispossession that had already been institutionalised under British colonial rule. In 1913 the <a href="http://www.ruraldevelopment.gov.za/publications/land-audit-report/file/6126">Natives Land Act</a> was passed, designating 87% of the land for white ownership.</p>
<p>In 1948 the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/national-party-np">National Party</a> won the election and institutionalised apartheid. The regime imposed even more segregation, intensifying discrimination. Pay differentials <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/09/world/at-south-africa-s-mines-race-barriers-are-rigid.html">increased</a> up to 20 to one by 1970. Anglo American’s business boomed during the apartheid era, and by 1990 the group was South Africa’s dominant economic actor, according to David Pallister et al in <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/1989-06-01/south-africa-inc-oppenheimer-empire">“South Africa Inc: the Oppenheimer empire”</a> (1988).</p>
<p>The British Council’s wider purpose is to generate “soft power”, as acknowledged in its 2012 report <a href="https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/influence-and-attraction-report.pdf">“Influence and Attraction”</a>. The then Foreign Secretary William Hague wrote in the foreword,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Britain remains a modern day cultural superpower.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Indeed. This exhibition begs the question when does cultural superpower become cultural imperialism? The exhibition extracts from the anti-apartheid struggle what can be reshaped into a cultural asset of soft power empire.</p>
<h2>The iconisation of Mandela</h2>
<p>The iconisation of Mandela goes well beyond this exhibition, but this is a particularly blatant attempt to harness his legend to a corporate agenda.</p>
<p>After his release from 27 years in prison, Mandela was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/04/the-end-of-apartheid-diary-of-revolution-robin-renwick-review">heavily courted</a> by Anglo’s Oppenheimer and then British prime minister Margaret Thatcher as the moderate solution in the end game of apartheid. My view as an activist scholar is that the pressure worked, and as I <a href="http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/32854/">wrote</a> Mandela <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-01-23-mandelas-davos-experience-will-ramaphosa-face-the-same/">made a U-turn</a> and decided not to nationalise the banks and mines as promised in the ANC’s strategic programme, the <a href="http://www.historicalpapers.wits.ac.za/inventories/inv_pdfo/AD1137/AD1137-Ea6-1-001-jpeg.pdf">Freedom Charter</a>. </p>
<p>Huge economic interests are still involved. London is the <a href="http://londonminingnetwork.org/">world’s financial centre</a> for mining majors. Anglo made <a href="http://www.angloamerican.com/investors/annual-reporting">$5.5 billion operating profits</a> worldwide in 2017, of which some $3 billion came from South Africa. The Johannesburg-London axis constructed by Rhodes still revolves.</p>
<p>Why should this matter? The British Council’s <a href="https://www.britishcouncil.org/organisation/policy-insight-research/the-value-of-trust">mission to build trust</a> between peoples is fundamentally undermined by its co-option by corporate interest. Britons need to challenge the official narratives that leave out the imperialism of their establishment. Where the exploitation continues, the struggle continues.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103450/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Higginbottom is affiliated with the Marikana Solidarity Collective.</span></em></p>Corporate interests undermine the British Council's mission to build trust.Andy Higginbottom, Associate Professor of International Politics, Human Rights and Social Justice, Kingston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1000422018-07-16T14:09:42Z2018-07-16T14:09:42ZBlame politicians, not Mandela, for South Africa's unfinished business<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227818/original/file-20180716-44097-192wazu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nelson Mandela, arriving for Thabo Mbeki&#39;s inauguration in 2004.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Jon Hrusa</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>July 2018 marks Nelson Mandela’s <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/nelson-mandela-100">centenary year</a>. Why is he still so revered across the world? The answer simply is that he is widely regarded as the personification of values which he spent much of his life fighting for. These included social justice, democracy, and freedom. </p>
<p>At the <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/nelson-mandelas-statement-dock-rivonia-trial">Rivonia Trial</a> in 1964, he asserted that it was these values for which he hoped to live, but for which he was “<a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/i-am-prepared-to-die">prepared to die</a>”. He would spend 27 years in prison before he could realise his dream of a South Africa freed from repressive and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/07/apartheid-south-africa-cape-town-police-protests">brutal racial segregation</a>.</p>
<p>In prison, Mandela’s stature and mythology was carefully nurtured by his movement, the African National Congress <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/">ANC</a>, and the <a href="http://africanactivist.msu.edu/organization.php?name=Anti-Apartheid+Movement">anti-apartheid movement</a>. This established him as the focus for the global struggle against apartheid. </p>
<p>By the 1980s, Mandela was the world’s most famous political prisoner. He was celebrated at <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/nelson-mandela-freedom-rally">rallies</a>, featured on <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/05/world/africa/Mandelas-Struggle-in-Posters.html">protest posters</a>, and immortalised in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNpfJu1CVyc">popular culture</a>.</p>
<p>Mandela’s conviction and adherence to <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/the-freedom-charter">non-racialism and democratic ideals</a> came to symbolise the intrinsic moral nature of the struggle against white minority rule. </p>
<p>In the world’s current international climate of conflict and political cynicism, Mandela’s legacy continues to serve as a rare example of a principled politician who represented an indefatigable commitment to forgiveness and reconciliation. </p>
<p>Mandela commanded respect and moral authority at home and abroad for his strong convictions, humility, and courageous actions that ensured all South Africans could live in a democratic society. These achievements in the face of enormous challenges should not be underestimated.</p>
<p>As South Africa’s first democratic president there was a clear emphasis on transformation for the majority. This came about through political action under the slogan “<a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/a-better-life-for-all">a better life for all</a>”, the introduction of a progressive and liberal <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996">constitution</a>, stabilising the economy, and enshrining the ideals of democracy by stepping down from the presidency after one term in office.</p>
<p>Yet there is mounting disquiet and frustration about the slow pace of South Africa’s transformation in the democratic era. This is characterised by stubborn <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/530481521735906534/Overcoming-Poverty-and-Inequality-in-South-Africa-An-Assessment-of-Drivers-Constraints-and-Opportunities">economic inequality</a>, <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=11129">growing unemployment</a>, missed opportunities and the failure to establish the form of “new” society articulated by Mandela.</p>
<p>What would have seemed unthinkable a few years ago is a growing and vocal criticism of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africa-should-undo-mandelas-economic-deals-52767">Mandela’s legacy</a>. The primary target of this frustration is the compromises and reconciliation efforts of the early 1990s, which so endeared Mandela to the world. But for many South Africans the outcomes were too accommodating to the white minority.</p>
<p>Is the mounting criticism of Mandela fair? I would argue not. South Africa currently faces many challenges, but it isn’t Mandela who failed people’s expectations. The blame for that must be put squarely at the door of the country’s politicians.</p>
<h2>Is criticism of Mandela fair?</h2>
<p>First of all its deeply unfair and highly problematic to prescribe South Africa’s current travails on one person. Part of this problem stems from the perception that Mandela single-handedly delivered freedom for South Africa and led the negotiation process. </p>
<p>This is simply not true. And the “single story” is a disservice to the multitude of organisations and activists that fought apartheid including the ANC, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-steve-bikos-remarkable-legacy-often-overlooked-82952">Black Consciousness Movement</a>, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/congress-south-african-trade-unions-cosatu">trade unions</a>, and the <a href="http://www.saha.org.za/udf/origins.htm">United Democratic Front</a>.</p>
<p>In addition it was the collective leadership of the ANC, not Mandela alone, that negotiated with the National Party during the transition process to seek a political compromise. </p>
<p>The ANC should certainly have pushed for more concessions. In reality the party effectively sacrificed wider economic and social change for political power. </p>
<p>It is the lack of substantive change enacted during the transition that has prompted the emerging reevaluation of Mandela’s legacy.</p>
<p>To argue that Mandela “sold out” through these compromises is a misreading of the situation and fundamentally ignores the challenges and constraints of the period. These included: escalating violence across the country; the ANC negotiating from a position of structural weakness; the National Party remaining undefeated; the impossibility of overthrowing the apartheid regime by force; and a fundamentally altered post-Cold War political and economic environment. </p>
<p>Most important of all, 1994 was not supposed to be the final stage for transformation. Rather, it was a platform for future efforts. But the ANC has not succeeded in doing enough to initiate wider-societal transformation since 1994 based on the unfinished business of the negotiations. </p>
<h2>ANC failures</h2>
<p>The party’s inability to implement sustained policy changes for the benefit of the majority is evident from a number of ongoing political debates. These include anger about unemployment, land <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-06-05-south-africa-has-all-legislative-and-policy-tools-for-land-redistribution-politics-patronage-and-governance-paralysis-have-made-it-impossible-so-far/#.W0m4CGfGs7w">expropriation</a> without compensation, and <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1964643/sa-is-shocked-the-anc-is-shocked-about-corruption/">corruption</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, the ANC appears to have lost its sense of direction. The political elite has been badly mired by <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2018/02/15/south-africa-s-divisive-president-zuma-s-many-scandals">scandals</a>, most notably under the former presidency of Jacob Zuma.</p>
<p>There is no doubt Mandela was a complex and flawed individual, but his vision still matters. What is required in this centenary year is for people from all sections of society to work together to embody Mandela’s values and convictions to keep the country moving forward to overcome the deeply ingrained legacies and injustices of the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100042/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Graham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mandela continues to serve as a rare example of a principled politician committed to forgiveness and reconciliation.Matthew Graham, Lecturer in History, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/956652018-04-26T13:29:00Z2018-04-26T13:29:00ZWhy only revolutionary change will deliver real freedom<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216480/original/file-20180426-175038-jlec60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The ANC has had an exceptionally poor track record of governance.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Cornell Tukiri</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/freedom-day-celebrated-south-africa">Freedom Day</a> is an annual public holiday in South Africa to celebrate the anniversary of the country’s first democratic election in 1994. The euphoria of that moment is now a distant memory. To many the promise of a truly democratic future marked out in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-legacy-of-south-africas-freedom-charter-60-years-later-43647">Freedom Charter</a> of 1955, and even the less radical commitments of the new <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996">Constitution</a> adopted in 1996, seem to have been <a href="http://abahlali.org/node/16440/">betrayed</a>.</p>
<p>From communities, to the mines and the factories, university campuses, and rural areas there is a deep sense that the promise of what was once called “the new South Africa” has been dashed. This often manifests in <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-04-19-mayhem-in-mahikeng-looting-and-loathing-in-the-north-west/">popular protest</a> and the emergence of new forms of popular organisation outside the ruling African National Congress (ANC).</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/convention-democratic-south-africa-codesa">negotiated settlement</a> that brought an end to apartheid at the end of the Cold War was once widely – if not universally – celebrated. But the settlement was a compromise, a fact that quickly became apparent. The negotiated settlement ensured that the transition left many of the colonial features of South African society intact. The interests of the <a href="https://www.pambazuka.org/advocacy-campaigns/co-optation-african-national-congress-south-africa%E2%80%99s-original-%E2%80%98state-capture%E2%80%99">old white elites and the emerging black elites</a> were systematically prioritised over those of the working class and impoverished majority.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the ANC has had an exceptionally poor track record of governance. The party is regularly charged with <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2018/04/23/new-york-times-slams-anc-says-the-party-has-become-gorged-on-corruption_a_23417690/">wholesale corruption</a>, repression (including, most notoriously, the 2012 <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">massacre</a> of striking miners at Marikana), sustaining neo-apartheid forms of rule in the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-04-24-traditional-leaders-not-rural-citizens-are-at-the-centre-of-the-land-expropriation-debate-2/#.WuHKLYhubIU">countryside</a> and the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-03-09-00-urban-land-question-is-also-urgent">cities</a> and the failure to redistribute <a href="https://www.news24.com/Columnists/GuestColumn/land-expropriation-without-compensation-what-does-it-mean-20180304-5">land</a> and democratise the commanding heights of the economy by removing it from the domination of white capital.</p>
<h2>A great disappointment</h2>
<p>The broad sense of disappointment in post-apartheid South Africa is not just a matter of sentiment. It’s an undeniable fact that millions are unemployed and millions languish in shacks.</p>
<p>The most recent <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/530481521735906534/pdf/124521-REV-OUO-South-Africa-Poverty-and-Inequality-Assessment-Report-2018-FINAL-WEB.pdf">2018 World Bank Report</a> shows that over 55% of the population live below the poverty line. Those closest to the upper poverty line live on just R992 (USD$80) per person and over 76% live with the constant threat of poverty.</p>
<p>And, according to last year’s figures, 27.7% of the population is unemployed and up to <a href="https://theconversation.com/food-insecurity-is-a-reality-for-millions-of-south-africans-living-in-informal-settlements-48519">70% of homes</a> suffer food insecurity with many of these households skipping meals. </p>
<p>The education statistics are just as bleak. A <a href="https://www.google.co.za/search?q=age+at+grade+4&amp;oq=age+at+grade+4&amp;aqs=chrome..69i57.2772j0j7&amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;ie=UTF-8">2016 international literacy report</a> found that eight out of 10 school pupils in Grade 4, that is between the ages of 9-10, cannot read.</p>
<p>Two decades after the end of apartheid the majority of the black population still labours under conditions of exploitation, oppression and poverty despite South Africa being classified as a <a href="https://www.brandsouthafrica.com/investments-immigration/business/economy/south-africa-economy-overview">upper middle income economy</a> with the second largest economy on the continent. </p>
<p>The stark contrast between rich and poor makes South Africa the most <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/530481521735906534/pdf/124521-REV-OUO-South-Africa-Poverty-and-Inequality-Assessment-Report-2018-FINAL-WEB.pdf">unequal country in the world</a>. This inequality is deeply raced and gendered. African women are consistently at the bottom of all indicators – from poverty to income, education, safety and food insecurity. The key question that arises is how have such conditions been able to continue in a country as rich as South Africa?</p>
<h2>Betrayal of a promise</h2>
<p>The ANC came to power via the strength of a <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/timeline-labour-and-trade-union-movement-south-africa-1980-1990">working-class mass movement</a> based both in communities and workplaces. But once the ANC attained power it demobilised the movements that had defeated apartheid. This allowed the party to become a vehicle for elite interests. Black elites sought to integrate themselves into existing power structures, and to become partners in the management of exploitation and oppression, rather than to build a just society.</p>
<p>The majority of black South Africans were left with <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng.pdf">liberal rights</a> on paper. In reality, however, they continued to suffer severe impoverishment and exploitation. As the gap between the promises of the “new South Africa” and lived reality widened, protests became <a href="https://theconversation.com/protests-soar-amid-unmet-expectations-in-south-africa-42013">more frequent</a>, and repression rapidly worsened.</p>
<p>The ANC lacked the political will to implement even the most basic economic reforms for the majority of South Africans. This is in stark contrast to <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-04-08-brazil-lulas-imprisonment-an-attack-on-the-working-class-globally/#.WuCGPdNubjA">Lula’s government in Brazil</a> which made modest reforms that, nonetheless, made a real difference to people’s lives. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216484/original/file-20180426-175044-1wj2fdc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216484/original/file-20180426-175044-1wj2fdc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216484/original/file-20180426-175044-1wj2fdc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216484/original/file-20180426-175044-1wj2fdc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216484/original/file-20180426-175044-1wj2fdc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216484/original/file-20180426-175044-1wj2fdc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216484/original/file-20180426-175044-1wj2fdc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many South Africans continue to wallow in poverty 24 years after freedom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Nic Bothma</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The rhetoric of the ANC, and its partners in the <a href="http://www.sacp.org.za/">South African Communist Party</a> and the <a href="http://www.cosatu.org.za/show.php?ID=925">Congress of South African Trade Unions</a> was, and is often, left wing, sometimes even socialist. But in reality, the country has been ruled by a comprador elite unwilling to make even the most limited moves to reform the countryside, the cities or the economy. The crux of the country’s disappointment lies in the fact that the ANC tied itself to the interests of capital rather than to the majority of South Africans.</p>
<h2>Ramaphosa no panacea</h2>
<p>Under Jacob Zuma’s disgraceful rule the degeneration of the ruling party spiralled into free fall. But as much as the removal of Zuma from the Presidency is to be welcomed, it <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/12/jacob-zuma-south-africa-anc">does not resolve</a> the country’s fundamental problems. Corruption did not begin with Zuma, and the entire negotiated settlement was a deal structured to keep rapacious forms of capitalism in place.</p>
<p>President Cyril Ramaphosa <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Economy/ramaphosa-a-deeply-compromised-capitalist-billionaire-saftu-20171228">is an oligarch</a> who became a key figure in the forms of accumulation and repression that have left the majority of black South Africans still impoverished and exploited after apartheid.</p>
<p>If freedom is to be realised for the majority of people, South Africa will have to construct a new rural order, a new urban order and a new economic order. But charming the elites in <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Economy/South-Africa/ramaphosa-wows-davos-money-20180128-2">Davos</a> and the <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2018/04/18/were-here-for-the-ramaphosa-tells-london-elite_a_23414106/">City of London</a> won’t change the lives of impoverished and working class South Africans. A return to neoliberalism cannot be the answer to our tremendous problems.</p>
<h2>Towards socialism</h2>
<p>If the promise of freedom is to be restored to South Africans, the first step is to rebuild the power of the working class and impoverished people. And a clear vision of a better future needs to be developed that goes beyond liberal rights and into substantive entitlements. New formations need to build their power to the point where a new order can be constructed in the countryside, the cities and in the economy.</p>
<p>South Africa, is fortunate to still have a mass-based working class movement. By building the power of progressive formations of impoverished and working class people across the country the country can begin to build an alternative society in which socialism is not just empty rhetoric. It is in this kind of change, revolutionary change, that the hope for real freedom lies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95665/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vashna Jagarnath is affiliated with The National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa NUMSA</span></em></p>The removal of Jacob Zuma from power is to be welcomed but, it's not the answer to South Africa's problems.Vashna Jagarnath, Senior researcher, Centre for Social Change, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/886472017-12-07T10:09:52Z2017-12-07T10:09:52ZSouth Africa's communist party strips the ANC of its multi-class ruling party status<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197921/original/file-20171206-896-xftwg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There is a fallout between alliance partners the South African Communist Party and the governing ANC.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The South African Communist Party (SACP) has broken with history and challenged the governing African National Congress (ANC) in an election. The SACP’s decision to go it alone in the Metsimaholo municipality by-election marks a new low in relations within the tripartite alliance forged during the struggle against apartheid. The other alliance partner is the trade union federation Cosatu. The contest ended in a hung council, with the ANC taking 16 seats, the Democratic Alliance 11, the Economic Freedom Fighters eight and the SACP three. Politics and Society Editor Thabo Leshilo asked political scientist Professor Dirk Kotze about the development.</em></p>
<p><strong>What is the significance of this development?</strong></p>
<p>The decision to contest an election on its own clearly represents a watershed event for the SACP. It is the first tangible step towards implementation of a <a href="http://www.sacp.org.za/12th_congress/resolutions.pdf">resolution</a> taken by the SACP in 2007. Then, unhappy with the ANC’s policies in government, the communists raised the issue of contesting elections themselves. It proposed doing this either within a “reconfigured alliance” or having its own candidates contest elections, after which it would come to an agreement with the ANC on how to cooperate in government.</p>
<p>The SACP’s decision to go it alone is the culmination of a fallout dating back to 1996. Then, the ANC government under President Thabo Mbeki announced a macro economic framework, known as Growth, Employment and Redistribution <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.za/publications/other/gear/chapters.pdf">(Gear)</a>, without substantial consultations with the SACP and Cosatu. Both slammed the policy as being <a href="http://www.cosatu.org.za/show.php?ID=2957">anti-communist</a> and serving the interests of business at the expense of the poor working class.</p>
<p>The SACP, and Cosatu, thought that their fortunes had turned when, with their support, Jacob Zuma was elected president of the ANC in <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2007-12-18-zuma-is-new-anc-president">Polokwane in 2007</a>. But it wasn’t to be. Both groups have subsequently fallen out with <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/general/142598/how-zumas-faction-is-starting-to-unravel/">Zuma</a>. The relationship has deteriorated so badly that SACP members in KwaZulu-Natal are being assassinated over <a href="http://ewn.co.za/Topic/Moerane-Commission-of-Inquiry">municipal council positions</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Why is this so unusual?</strong></p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.cosatu.org.za/show.php?ID=2051">Tripartite Alliance</a> can be traced back to the late 1940s and the Communist Party’s subsequent underground involvement in the ANC-led <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/significance-congress-people-and-freedom-charter">Congress of the People in 1955</a>. The Congress Alliance adopted the <a href="http://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/HIST/freedomchart/freedomch.html">Freedom Charter</a> as its blueprint for a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-legacy-of-south-africas-freedom-charter-60-years-later-43647">democratic and prosperous South Africa</a>.</p>
<p>In the 1960s the formation of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/umkhonto-wesizwe-mk">Umkhonto we Sizwe</a>, the armed wing formed by ANC and SACP members, was arguably the most concrete articulation of the ANC-SACP alliance. </p>
<p>In the decades that followed the SACP played a key role in facilitating the support of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc for the ANC and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/organisations/south-african-congress-trade-unions-sactu">South African Congress of Trade Unions</a>. The communists also shaped the ANC’s philosophy around national liberation as the <a href="http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=1850">“national democratic revolution”</a> and view of apartheid as <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/apartheid-south-africa-colonialism-special-type">“colonialism of a special type”</a>.</p>
<p>This influence on the ANC was personified by the likes of leading communists <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/moses-m-kotane">Moses Kotane</a>, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/moses-mabhida">Moses Mabhida</a> and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/dr-yusuf-mohamed-dadoo">Dr Yusuf Dadoo</a>. The SACP viewed the alliance as a <a href="http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=6249">popular front</a> uniting the working class and progressive forces in the struggle for freedom. </p>
<p>The SACP is unique in Africa because very few communist parties survived after independence. Most of them were either <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-communism-appears-to-be-gaining-favour-in-south-africa-45063">banned or integrated</a> into nationalist liberation movement governments. </p>
<p>The party’s independent participation in the Metsimaholo by-election takes it back to the period before 1950 when communists such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/09/southafrica.pressandpublishing">Brian Bunting</a> and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/sam-kahn">Sam Kahn</a> represented the then <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv03445/04lv03446/05lv03462.htm">Communist Party of South Africa</a> in Parliament. </p>
<p>But after that, and after the party was banned, the SACP’s revolutionary theory of <a href="http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=2638">armed struggle and insurrection</a> excluded an electoral approach. </p>
<p>Once the first inclusive elections were planned in South Africa, the SACP deferred to the ANC as the leader of the national democratic revolution to pursue an electoral approach. </p>
<p><strong>What is the significance for South Africa?</strong></p>
<p>Firstly, no one can continue to argue that the Tripartite Alliance is still a coherent political front bringing together a working class union movement (Cosatu), working class party (SACP) and a multi-class governing party (ANC). </p>
<p>What this means is that the ANC’s social democratic character in terms of a partnership with working class organisations has come to an end. The ANC will now have to reconfigure its own identity as a social democratic party, similar to former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s reconfiguration of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-10518842">“New Labour”</a>. </p>
<p>Secondly, the SACP’s decision serves as an official recording of the radical changes the ANC’s identity has undergone in terms of how it defines its own interests or constituencies. It’s finally stating that its core interests and those of the ANC’s are in the process of parting ways. In socialist parlance, the ANC’s and SACP’s class interests have reached a crossroads. </p>
<p>This follows on the earlier decision by Cosatu’s largest affiliate the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa to part ways with the federation and to establish the <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2016/01/19/Numsa-United-Front-structures-registered-to-contest-local-elections">United Front</a> as its own political vehicle. It’s still unclear whether this this will result in a new left political movement. But, all the socio-economic conditions - <a href="https://issafrica.org/research/papers/economics-governance-and-instability-in-south-africa">such as high inequality, unemployment</a>, <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=10334">poverty </a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-protesters-echo-a-global-cry-democracy-isnt-making-peoples-lives-better-77639">social discontent</a> - provide fertile ground for just such a movement.</p>
<p><strong>What are the electoral prospects of the SACP?</strong></p>
<p>The SACP is not in a position to mobilise substantial support in the near future. The left is contested terrain and prone to fragmentation. This is partly the result of personality clashes and ideological hair-splitting. </p>
<p>It could possibly join forces with the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa which, for the last 30 years, has debated the ideal of a workers’ party. This would only be viable if the SACP combined its party programme with the social democratic (social welfare) needs of a rural, non-socialist populace. This would imply making ideological compromises, which is not uncommon for the SACP. It would also require it to establish a real party political infrastructure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88647/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dirk Kotze does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The South African Communist Party's decision to compete in an election against its alliance partner the ANC is a watershed moment for them, with important implications for the country.Dirk Kotze, Professor in Political Science, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/858382017-10-25T12:18:10Z2017-10-25T12:18:10ZSouth Africa's ANC is celebrating the year of OR Tambo. Who was he?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190606/original/file-20171017-30390-1bx309e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Oliver Reginald Tambo served as ANC president from 1967 to 1991.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2538380.Oliver_Tambo">Oliver Tambo’s</a> name and reputation are <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781770100756">lauded</a>, not least because he succeeded, remarkably, in keeping the African National Congress <a href="http://www.anc.org.za">(ANC)</a> together as a liberation movement during an <a href="http://www.whyjoburg.com/oliver-tambo.html">exile lasting 30 years</a>. Despite this legacy, the ANC, now South Africa’s governing party, has seen a year culminating in what is, arguably, its greatest crisis. Today, factions within the ANC nostalgically point to the <a href="http://www.sabc.co.za/wps/portal/news/main/tag?tag=OR%20Tambo%20Memorial%20Lecture">example of Oliver Reginald Tambo</a> , or OR as he was affectionately known in party circles.</p>
<p>Evidence of <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/the-race-corruption-a-big-problem-for-anc">systemic corruption</a> and <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/09/04/mkhize-we-must-face-up-to-the-problems-of-factions-inside-anc">factionalism</a> for personal gain within the ANC are blamed for the failure to deliver improved living conditions to the poorest communities. The loss of three major metropolitan municipal councils in the industrial heartland testifies to diminished <a href="https://theconversation.com/sharp-tongued-south-african-voters-give-ruling-anc-a-stiff-rebuke-63606">confidence in the ANC</a>.</p>
<p>By contrast, in the year of his <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/splash/index">centenary</a>, Oliver Tambo is held as an exemplar of integrity, personifying the ideal of a leader who for 50 years selflessly served the movement, consistently holding up the goals of a humane and caring society.</p>
<p>But who was this much talked about Tambo? And what lessons can be learnt from his leadership?</p>
<h2>Exile</h2>
<p>In 1960, after the <a href="http://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/multimedia.php?id=65-259-E">Sharpeville massacre</a>, then ANC President Chief Albert Luthuli instructed Tambo to leave South Africa as an international <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2538380.Oliver_Tambo">diplomat of the ANC</a>. His task was to mobilise a worldwide economic boycott.</p>
<p>With hindsight it was a prescient judgement call. The military wing of the ANC <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/umkhonto-wesizwe-mk">Umkhonto we Sizwe</a> was launched a year later and within two years leaders of the ANC were facing charges of treason in the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/rivonia-trial-1963-1964">Rivonia Trial</a>. The trial, which stretched through 1963-1964, led to life sentences for the leaders of Umkhonto we Sizwe, which included <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/walter-ulyate-sisulu">Walter Sisulu</a>, <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography">Nelson Mandela</a>, <a href="http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=2360">Govan Mbeki</a> and <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/mr-ahmed-kathrada">Ahmed Kathrada</a>.</p>
<p>Tambo’s task was to alert the world to the horrors of apartheid South Africa, and to seek assistance and support from newly independent states in Africa. It was to be more than 30 years before he returned home in <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/oliver-tambo-returns-exile">December 1990</a>. During this time, his integrity combined with his keen intellect and natural warmth impressed many people in diverse countries around the world.</p>
<h2>Consensus seeker</h2>
<p>Tambo was a careful and astute listener. He followed the indigenous African consensus system of decision making, crafting a conclusion that included at least some of the opinions of all participants.</p>
<p>He believed that the ANC should maintain the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2538380.Oliver_Tambo">“high moral ground”</a> and that it should be a broad umbrella under which all enemies of apartheid could shelter and enrich the movement, irrespective of their political beliefs. He was also cautious, likening the challenge of the liberation struggle to the traditional <em>“indima”</em> method of ploughing a very large piece of land. He <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2538380.Oliver_Tambo">explained</a> at a Sophiatown meeting in 1953.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There’s a point where you must start. You can’t plough it all at once – you have to tackle it acre by acre…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One of Tambo’s strengths was his constructive and creative response to criticism. In 1967, for example, following the failure of Umkhonto we Sizwe cadres to reach the borders of South Africa after a battle at <a href="http://www.sadet.co.za/docs/rtd/vol1/sadet1_chap12.pdf">Wankie in “Rhodesia”</a> (now Zimbabwe), Chris Hani and others, disillusioned with the leaders’ lethargy, released an <a href="http://www.loot.co.za/product/hugh-macmillan-chris-hani/pyjg-2664-g860?referrer=bookslive">angry memorandum</a>. In an interview I did with Hani in Johannesburg in 1993 he admitted: “We blew our tops.” They accused the leadership of Umkhonto we Sizwe and the ANC of getting too comfortable and losing their appetite to return home – they had become “men in suits, clutching passports”.</p>
<p>The response by the leadership was outrage – the Secretary-General Alfred Nzo called for Hani’s execution for treason. But Tambo immediately began organising a conference of elected representatives of the branches around the world. A message was sent to Robben Island to inform ANC leaders jailed there, including Nelson Mandela, of this development.</p>
<p>It was time for frank conversation and a comprehensive, considered assessment. The outcome was the historic and constructive conference at <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/morogoro-conference">Morogoro in Tanzania</a>. The conference took on a more inclusive and democratic direction for the ANC, foregrounding the political aims over the military, and identifying the importance of mobilising workers at home.</p>
<h2>Challenging 1980s</h2>
<p>In the 1980s Tambo was faced with a more serious challenge. International attention against apartheid was growing; he was travelling extensively, persuading ordinary people to undermine apartheid by boycotting its products and banks and denying it arms. Alarmed, the apartheid regime sent spies into ANC camps on the continent, infiltrating top committees in Lusaka and other ANC structures.</p>
<p>The panic that ensued turned the spotlight on the flaws of the Umkhonto we Sizwe leadership. Human rights abuses of suspected spies and “ill-disciplined cadres” led to <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/media%5C1996%5C9608/s960822l.htm">unlawful deaths and executions</a>.</p>
<p>Tambo’s <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02582473.2012.675813">cautious response</a> was criticised by the leadership of both ANC intelligence and Umkhonto we Sizwe for “impeding investigation” into the spies, owing to “his sense of democracy”. The chief culprits of these human rights abuses were formerly trusted peers of Tambo. He faced the dilemma of blowing the ANC wide apart if he challenged them. Instead, he resorted to the compromising strategy of redeploying them to other sections of the movement, such as education – perhaps leaving an unfortunate legacy for today’s ANC.</p>
<h2>Enduring legacy</h2>
<p>Tambo was to set in motion a process that culminated in South Africa’s democratic constitution. He:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>subscribed Umkhonto we Sizwe and the ANC to the Geneva Convention, which imposed a strict adherence to human rights.</p></li>
<li><p>set up a <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/stuart-commission-report">commission</a> of trusted senior comrades to look into the conditions in the ANC’s camps in Africa as well as abuses. The commission’s report was highly critical.</p></li>
<li><p>summoned an consultative conference in Kabwe in 1985 that reaffirmed ANC’s humanist values, addressed gender inequalities and formally accepted whites in official positions.</p></li>
<li><p>appointed the movement’s top legal minds to research and craft a constitution for the ANC; it was inspired by the <a href="http://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/HIST/freedomchart/freedomch.html">Freedom Charter</a>, which had been drawn up in 1956 after extensive consultation with ordinary people. It opened with the ringing words:</p></li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<p>South Africa belongs to all who live in it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>South Africa’s new democracy essentially incorporated many of the clauses in the charter’s the path-breaking <a href="https://www.gov.za/DOCUMENTS/CONSTITUTION/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-1">1996</a> constitution.</p>
<h2>Tambo’s insights remain relevant</h2>
<p>Reporting to his first conference inside South Africa in December 1990 after the unbanning of the ANC, <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/president-or-tambos-opening-address-ancs-48th-national-conference">Tambo warned that </a> “suspicions will not disappear overnight, the building of the South African nation is a national ask of paramount importance. </p>
<p>And he warned:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The struggle is far from over: if anything, it has become more complex and therefore more difficult. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He also reflected that "we were always ready to accept our mistakes and correct them.”</p>
<p>Faced by crises in the ANC, Tambo had always been ready to listen, responding constructively and creatively with new policies to meet the challenges of the time. </p>
<p>This is the enduring legacy of Oliver Tambo: many seasons later, many continue to gain insights and learn relevant lessons from his responses to the universal, human condition of our time. But whether they heeded this call is a moot point:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have devotedly watched over the organisation all these years. I now hand it back to you, bigger, stronger - intact. Guard our precious movement.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85838/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luli Callinicos is author of Oliver Tambo: Beyond The Engeli Mountains published by David Philip Publishersin 2004. She received a Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Grant (1993), Ford Foundation (2000) towards writing the biography of Oliver Tambo. She serves on the MISTRA Council of Advisers, National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciens Board member, also on Council of Robben Island Museum.</span></em></p>Factions within South Africa’s ANC nostalgically point to the example of Oliver Reginald Tambo whose seen as an exemplar of integrity, personifying an ideal leader who served the party selflessly.Luli Callinicos, Researcher and founder member of the History Workshop, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/802362017-06-29T15:01:56Z2017-06-29T15:01:56ZTribute to a Namibian icon: Andimba Toivo ya Toivo<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176187/original/file-20170629-16091-hkdmay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Filckr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On June 9, 2017 Namibia became poorer. A moral beacon left the people, for whose freedom he lived most of his 92 years. Active until the end, Andimba (Herman) Toivo ya Toivo had just returned from a trip to Robben Island with his <a href="http://www.namibian.com.na/index.php?id=127229&amp;page=archive-read">fellow inmate Helao Shityuwete</a> – one of the other truly selfless, most underrated freedom fighters. Hours later he fell asleep forever at home.</p>
<p>Ya Toivo had been a torchbearer of the determination for freedom from foreign rule. He embodied a generation – many of whom left behind the values they claimed had guided their struggle after independence. In contrast, Ya Toivo remained loyal to what made him the personification of the desire to live in an independent country governed by and for its people in decency.</p>
<p>The loss of Ya Toivo should encourage others to become the torchbearers of his values.</p>
<h2>Road to Robben Island</h2>
<p>Brought up in the northern Namibian region then called Ovamboland, he was trained as an artisan and volunteered to fight for South Africa in <a href="http://www.parliament.na/index.php?option=com_contact&amp;view=contact&amp;id=723:toivo-ya-toivo-andimba-ca&amp;catid=118&amp;Itemid=1375">World War II</a>. After leaving school in the early 1950s he worked on contract in Cape Town where he became politically aware through African National Congress (ANC) activists.</p>
<p>He started to mobilise his fellow Namibian contract workers. These were Namibians from the northern parts of the territory who were contracted for periods of time to work (without their families) in mines and industry. They were restricted to the workplace and accommodated in compounds if they weren’t living as domestic workers with their employers. </p>
<p>He founded the <a href="https://books.google.se/books?id=Mls4H1mnN_0C&amp;pg=PA333&amp;lpg=PA333&amp;dq=Ovamboland+People%27s+Congress&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=_FKyvEPMFA&amp;sig=T3_66PPsmb17hEJTEuhHMDNyOFI&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;redir_esc=y#v=onepage&amp;q=Ovamboland%20People%27s%20Congress&amp;f=false">Ovamboland People’s Congress</a>, which demanded the abolition of contract labour and an end of South African administration over his country. In 1958 he managed to dispatch a tape-recorded petition to the United Nations and was subsequently deported back to Ovamboland. There he became involved in the formation of the South West African People’s Organisation <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-west-africa-peoples-organisation-swapo">(Swapo)</a>.</p>
<p>Ya Toivo helped the first liberation fighters who had been trained abroad to prepare for the armed struggle. On August 26, 1966 the first military encounter <a href="http://www.namibian.com.na/index.php?id=113326&amp;page=archive-read">occurred</a> with the South African regime. Ya Toivo and hundreds of others were arrested.</p>
<p>He was <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/andimba-herman-toivo-ya-toivo">put to trial in Pretoria</a> along with Eliaser Tuhadeleni (as accused No 1) and 34 others. Ya Toivo’s speech <a href="http://www.namibian.com.na/56028/read/Toivos-message--to-Namibia--and-the-world#">from the dock</a> on February 1, 1968 became a lasting document of Namibian aspirations for freedom:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are Namibians and not South Africans. We do not now, and will not in the future, recognise your right to govern us, to make laws for us in which we have no say; to treat our country as if it were your property and us as if you were our masters. We have always regarded South Africa as an intruder in our country. This is how we have always felt and this is how we feel now, and it is on this basis that we have faced this trial.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thanks to international pressure, the accused were spared the death penalty. Ya Toivo and several others were sentenced to long imprisonment of which they served up to <a href="http://www.sabracelets.org/messack-victory.html">nearly 20 years</a>. </p>
<p>On Robben Island, Ya Toivo’s defiance, stubbornness and resilience made him the most respected among the Namibian prisoners, who developed close ties with the ANC inmates. Andimba and Madiba (Nelson Mandela’s clan name) had more in common than a striking similarity of the letters in their names. They remained friends for the rest of their lives. As <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/27/andimba-toivo-ya-toivo-obituary?CMP=share_btn_tw">remembered by Denis Herbstein</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In prison Toivo was unbending, seizing every opportunity to show his disdain for his jailers. A fellow prisoner described the scene when Toiva [sic] responded to his treatment by a young warder: Andimba unleashed a hard open-hand smack on the young warder’s cheek, sending [his] cap flying and [the warder] wailing (in Afrikaans), ‘The kaffir hit me’. The inevitable spell of solitary confinement followed. When Toivo was released in March 1984, short of his full term, he refused to leave his fellow prisoners and had to be coaxed out of his cell.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Into exile and Namibian independence</h2>
<p>Back home in Namibia, Ya Toivo refused to accept a South African initiated transitional government and left for exile. The Swapo leadership created the post of secretary-general for him, a niche to keep him away from the consolidated inner circle of power. He humbly accepted what was mainly a symbolic position to represent Swapo internationally without influencing its policy.</p>
<p>He soon met the US-American lawyer Vicky Erenstein. They married a week into Independence in 1990. In 1993 they became the parents of twin daughters Mutaleni and Nashikoto. They also adopted two of Ya Toivo’s nephews. The children <a href="http://www.namibian.com.na/55944/read/Ya-Toivos-children-pay-tribute-to-family-giant">remember</a> their father as youthful, “fun-loving, yet strict, attentive, playful and loving”.</p>
<p>He raised them to be loyal to fundamental principles such as honesty and modesty.</p>
<p>Maybe his biggest moral challenge (and failure) was when Swapo gave him the task in 1989 to monitor the release of several hundred so-called ex-detainees who had survived a Swapo purge in exile. During the 1980s thousands were kept near the <a href="http://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/85/Strategic%20Review/Vol%2038(1)/melber-review-2-pp-143-146.zp89618.pdf">southern Angolan town of Lubango</a> where they were tortured by a terror regime of “securocrats”. Many were executed or didn’t survive. Ya Toivo’s credibility was abused to downplay – if not to justify – the atrocities. He accepted the dubious role and never openly corrected the injustice and violation of human rights he certainly condemned.</p>
<p>On the evening of March 20, 1990, before the official independence ceremony at midnight, the Swapo leadership gathered for a banquet with local VIPs in the German club in central Windhoek. Not so Ya Toivo. He spent most of the evening with local activists and members of the international solidarity movement who had come together at a venue on the outskirts of the city. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176068/original/file-20170628-31302-jjpdw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176068/original/file-20170628-31302-jjpdw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=424&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176068/original/file-20170628-31302-jjpdw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=424&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176068/original/file-20170628-31302-jjpdw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=424&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176068/original/file-20170628-31302-jjpdw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=533&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176068/original/file-20170628-31302-jjpdw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=533&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176068/original/file-20170628-31302-jjpdw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=533&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andimba Toivo ya Toivo and Jack and Ray Simons, toasting to Namibian Independence on March 20, 1990.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Henning Melber</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Loyalty to true liberation</h2>
<p>Since Namibian independence Ya Toivo served three terms in cabinet as minister. As before, he put the party’s interest above his personal ambitions. Or rather, he acted in accordance with what he understood as being in the best interests of the country.</p>
<p>Power politics were a strange thing for him. What mattered were the party and the people. But he realised that the two are not identical. As a result, he displayed the wisdom one would expect from a true leader. Speaking for the last time in the <a href="http://www.namibian.com.na/56028/read/Toivos-message--to-Namibia--and-the-world#">National Assembly</a> on March 16, 2005 he reminded his comrades:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Being a member of parliament or even a minister should not be seen as an opportunity to achieve status, to be addressed as ‘honourables’ and to acquire riches. If those are your goals, you would do better to pursue other careers.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ya Toivo remained critically observant of the limits to liberation. As late as 2014 he commented on the values of South Africa’s <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/kids/freedom-charter">Freedom Charter</a> and the current leadership of the governing ANC. He quipped in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j2xcFEJK9U">video recorded interview</a>, that the people did not support the struggle for them just to fill their pockets and to loot the country.</p>
<p>Just as the ANC needs moral guardians who will enforce its core values to <a href="https://theconversation.com/anc-take-heed-even-big-brands-die-if-they-abandon-their-founding-values-79506">save its brand</a>, so does Namibia’s Swapo. </p>
<p>If there is a positive meaning to patriotism – all too often abused for inventing heroic narratives by those holding political power and celebrating themselves – then it can be identified with Toivo ya Toivo, a true Namibian patriot departed from this world. </p>
<p>Hamba Kahle, Andimba. You left behind a lasting legacy to the Namibian people who share your belief in true liberation as emancipation from greed and social injustice and a life in human dignity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80236/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber joined SWAPO in 1974 and met Andimba Toivo ya Toivo for the first time in 1984. </span></em></p>Andimba (Herman) Toivo Ya Toivo remained loyal to what made him the personification of the desire to live in an independent country governed by, and for, its people.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/786282017-06-04T12:11:38Z2017-06-04T12:11:38ZSouth Africa urgently needs to rethink its approach to housing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171794/original/file-20170601-25664-1u2rw2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protests over housing at, an informal settlement near Johannesburg.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Cornell Tukiri</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/05/31/eldorado-park-residents-shed-light-on-protests">recent protests</a> over housing shortages in Gauteng, South Africa’s richest province and economic hub, have put the spotlight on the problem and the role of the government in providing it.</p>
<p>Housing is a contentious political issue in the country. Strict social engineering during apartheid meant that black people were disadvantaged. Cities were racially divided, and the black population forced to live far from places of economic activity and without public amenities. </p>
<p>When it came into power in 1994 the new government tried to address these issues through various strategies, initially focusing on building houses, then attempting to shift the focus from “housing” to “human settlements”. A new plan was announced <a href="https://www.thehda.co.za/uploads/files/BREAKING_NEW_GROUND_DOC_copy-2_1.pdf">in 2004</a>, designed to address problems arising from the policies of the first ten years of democracy. </p>
<p>But problems have persisted, leading to protests <a href="http://www.gov.za/speeches/fourth-day-schooling-missed-due-protests-regarding-housing-10-may-2017-0000">across the country</a>. This article focuses on Gauteng where the housing backlog is big and tensions have been running high. </p>
<p>Gauteng has a backlog of a million houses. The problem has been <a href="http://da-gpl.co.za/housing-budget-diminished-funds-more-demands/">exacerbated</a> by budget cuts. In addition, it is said that more than 100 000 people move to Johannesburg a year, making it impossible to address the scale of <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/general/97211/south-africas-fastest-growing-cities/">demand</a>.</p>
<p>Recent events seem to imply that the government may be resorting to <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/05/15/lindiwe-sisulu-hope-housing-protests">short-term measures</a> to pacify anger and protest. But a major overhaul of housing policy is what’s actually needed. </p>
<h2>The government’s response to housing protests</h2>
<p>Pinning down the exact size of the housing backlog <a href="https://africacheck.org/factsheets/factsheet-the-housing-situation-in-south-africa/">is difficult</a>. What’s clear is that the government’s ability to deliver has <a href="https://africacheck.org/reports/minister-sisulu-is-right-sas-housing-delivery-has-almost-halved-since-200607/">declined</a>. Protesters point out that they have been on housing waiting lists for <a href="http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/protesters-over-lack-of-jobs--houses-clash-with-south-african-police-8832230">many years</a>. Extreme frustration has given rise to violent protests which have been growing in intensity.</p>
<p>People are unhappy with unclear time frames about when developments <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/05/14/commotion-as-protesting-communities-fight-to-be-heard-by-sisulu">will take place</a>. Tired of empty promises, they now want <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/eldos-residents-had-just-had-enough-of-the-neglect-9120279">“time lines and commitments”</a>. </p>
<p>The Gauteng government initially responded by outlining <a href="http://www.702.co.za/articles/248056/gauteng-mec-paul-mashatile-updates-on-reiger-park-housing-developments">the projects it was planning</a>. But these longer term visions are starting to give way to unrealistic promises being made at <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2017/05/11/Joburg-mayor-to-meet-Sisulu%E2%80%9A-Mashatile-as-housing-protests-erupt">community meetings</a>. These include plans to initiate land distribution and housing projects <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/05/15/lindiwe-sisulu-hope-housing-protests">as soon as next month</a>.</p>
<p>The danger is that government runs the risk of deviating from designing innovative, lasting solutions. Despite claiming that it’s committed to changing the way in which it manages demand; the more vocal residents are, the more the pressure piles up to continue providing houses in the same way.</p>
<p>This further delays the need to shift its focus from greenfields, peripheral locations to “corridors” that connect different parts of the disjointed city. </p>
<h2>Successes and failures</h2>
<p>South Africa’s post-apartheid Constitution emphasised the right of everyone to <a href="http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/images/a108-96.pdf">adequate housing</a>. This has been reaffirmed in subsequent Constitutional Court judgements, such as the celebrated <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2000/19.pdf">Grootboom Case of 2000</a>.</p>
<p>The housing programme is based on the <a href="http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/governmentgazetteid16085.pdf">Reconstruction and Development Programme</a> of 1994. “RDP” houses became a colloquial term for free houses provided by the government under a subsidy programme. </p>
<p>South Africa’s mass housing programme has been hugely successful in terms of the number of houses built: nearly four million <a href="http://www.dhs.gov.za/sites/default/files/documents/statistics/20%20Year%20delivery%20Sites%20%26%20Houses%20HSDG%20finalised%20ver.%2029052014.pdf">“housing opportunities”</a> – serviced stands, houses or social housing units – have been built since democracy in 1994. </p>
<p>Yet the supply of houses has not been able to keep up with the increase in <a href="https://www.thehda.co.za/uploads/files/BREAKING_NEW_GROUND_DOC_copy-2_1.pdf">demand in urban areas</a>. </p>
<p>And the government’s approach has given rise to rows upon rows of “one-size-fits all” houses located at the periphery of cities, far from <a href="https://africacheck.org/reports/mr-president-s-africa-is-not-the-only-country-giving-free-housing-to-the-poor/">work opportunities and services</a>, reinforcing apartheid’s spatial patterns. </p>
<p>While it’s acknowledged that the country must think beyond free houses, and that sustainable human settlements must include socio-cultural amenities and jobs, not much has been done to make this a reality. </p>
<p>Government is fully aware of this challenge. According to Paul Mashatile, the minister in charge of housing for Gauteng:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>RDP houses used to be built far away from anything. Today we are bringing RDP, bonded houses and rental stock together. We want poor people to live in the same space as <a href="http://www.gdhs.gpg.gov.za/Pages/Government-to%20pump-R6-billion-in%20-Clayville-Mega-Human-Settlements-Project.aspx">everyone else</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a bid to achieve this objective, and to increase the supply of houses, two years ago the government announced a programme to deliver <a href="http://www.gov.za/speeches/gpg-break-new-ground-launching-mega-housing-projects-1-apr-2015-0000">mega housing projects</a>. These and other government plans will, over the next few years, see people being housed in new developments.</p>
<p>But corridor developments and mega projects bring new layers of complexity. Can these be managed? Can demand be addressed and anger reduced? Can this be done fast enough? </p>
<h2>Time for change</h2>
<p>Models of delivery can’t continue to depend on the government. Instead, it should see its role as facilitating a diverse and multifaceted approach to ensure the involvement of many role players. This would result in different types of housing products and housing delivery methods that are less reliant on subsidies. </p>
<p>There are potential solutions that the government could pursue. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Rethinking government’s role as the sole funder. Diverse funding streams and the involvement of a range of stakeholders would allow for low cost and affordable housing to be an integral part of all city developments in well located, mixed income, mixed function, mixed community settings.</p></li>
<li><p>There should be a shift away from ownership and more focus on rental options. Private developers must be supported to operate in the field. </p></li>
<li><p>Delivery needs to be quick and efficient with minimal bureaucracy and delay, and must acknowledge the social as well as the technical aspects of housing. </p></li>
<li><p>Policymakers must revisit the questions of who should be targeted, what housing products should be delivered and how they should be delivered. For example, there needs to be a shift away from individual subsidies and products to collective models of housing. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>There has been surprisingly little innovation in the field of housing. It’s time for that to change, before it’s too late.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78628/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amira Osman receives funding from the National Research Foundation. </span></em></p>Recent events suggest that South Africa's government may be resorting to short-term measures to pacify anger over lack of housing. But what's needed is a major overhaul of the housing policy.Amira Osman, Associate Professor in Architecture, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/778872017-05-25T13:35:51Z2017-05-25T13:35:51ZPopulism on the rise as South Africa and Namibia gear up to elect new presidents<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169984/original/file-20170518-12254-1siixom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Jacob Zuma, left, gets a courtesy visit from President of Namibia Hage Geingob in 2015 in Cape Town. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Both South Africa and Namibia’s governing parties are set to hold elective congresses before the end of this year. Those who win the leadership contests will each lead their respective parties into a general election in 2019 as their presidential candidate. How this happens will be crucial for both countries’ political futures.</p>
<p>There are interesting similarities and differences between the two cases. As in many other countries, both states have a strong executive Head of State. There are term limits for the president of the country, if not for the president of the party. Both countries have constitutions that provide for a democratic governance structure, guided by the rule of law. </p>
<p>But in both cases the state presidency has so far been decided by the parties in power. Both governing parties came to power after armed <a href="https://theconversation.com/southern-africas-former-liberators-offer-rich-lessons-in-political-populism-70490">liberation struggles</a> in which a culture of secrecy and suspicion was widespread. Both had to negotiate a <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/collapse-apartheid-grade-12">regulated transition</a> from a minority regime to a <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/namibian-struggle-independence-1966-1990-historical-background">legitimately elected government</a>. </p>
<p>In both, returned exiles played key roles once their parties were voted into government. The African National Congress <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/">(ANC)</a> and the South West Africa People’s Organisation <a href="http://www.swapoparty.org/">(SWAPO)</a> had to adapt to a <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/liberal_democracy">liberal democratic order</a> that included transparency and accountability as part of civic demands and expectations. In both cases the constitutions provided for strong executive presidents with far-reaching <a href="http://www.gov.za/DOCUMENTS/CONSTITUTION/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-1">influence and power</a>, along with the <a href="http://www.icla.up.ac.za/images/constitutions/namibia_constitution.pdf">rule of law and multi-partyism</a>.</p>
<p>But the two countries have adjusted in different ways. SWAPO has entrenched its political dominance in all spheres of society since independence. The ANC is in decline and faces massive public protest and political opposition. In both cases the state presidents have resorted to populism to pursue their agendas. </p>
<h2>How South Africa and Namibia compare</h2>
<p>South Africa is a complex multi-layered class society with a long history of political and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/liberation-struggle-south-africa">ideological contestation</a>. It has a strong and multi-faceted <a href="http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/files/mckinleyconf50.pdf">civil society</a>. </p>
<p>The ANC’s political dominance has weakened. It got only 54% of the vote in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/sharp-tongued-south-african-voters-give-ruling-anc-a-stiff-rebuke-63606">2016 local government election</a>. There is speculation that it may not even get 50% in the <a href="http://www.702.co.za/articles/251032/anc-stands-to-lose-majority-in-2019-research">2019 general election</a>. </p>
<p>Under President Jacob Zuma, the ANC has been plunged into a crisis of legitimacy. The party so far has not showed loyalty towards the principles of the <a href="http://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/HIST/freedomchart/freedomch.html">Freedom Charter</a>, its pre-liberation blueprint for a free and democratic South Africa. Instead it has been seen to support state capture by a <a href="http://blog.transparency.org/2017/02/14/state-capture-in-south-africa/">governing clique</a>. While the ANC fails, a still vibrant civil society is doing what it can to <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/04/05/civil-society-organisations-join-forces-in-call-for-zuma-to-resign">keep Zuma in check</a>. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169988/original/file-20170518-12260-ti1us7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169988/original/file-20170518-12260-ti1us7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=740&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169988/original/file-20170518-12260-ti1us7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=740&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169988/original/file-20170518-12260-ti1us7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=740&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169988/original/file-20170518-12260-ti1us7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=930&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169988/original/file-20170518-12260-ti1us7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=930&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169988/original/file-20170518-12260-ti1us7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=930&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Namibia, on the other hand, with a <a href="http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/namibia-population/">total population</a> of less than a twentieth of South Africa’s, has very different social, political and class structures and a much weaker <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201601291383.html">civil society</a>. The old slogan from the struggle days, that <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/swapo-heads-for-victory-in-namibian-elections/a-18091417">SWAPO is the nation and the nation is SWAPO </a> still has resonance. </p>
<p>SWAPO has been in government since March 1990. It has steadily consolidated its political power, securing <a href="https://africacheck.org/factsheets/factsheet-namibia-votes/">80%</a> of votes in the national parliamentary elections of 2014. Its directly elected president, Hage Geingob received an <a href="http://links.org.au/node/4190">astonishing 87%</a>. Given the party’s overwhelming dominance its presidential candidate will, as a matter of formality, become Head of State for the next five years, with no meaningful opposition in Parliament. </p>
<p>In South Africa, though the Head of State is <a href="https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Govern_Political/SouthAf_Const_6.html">elected by Parliament</a>, he or she is nominated by the largest party. </p>
<p>In both cases the former liberation movements select the country’s next president. There is also a two-term limit for the president of the country, if not for the president of the party.</p>
<h2>Succession politics</h2>
<p>Towards the end of the year, some 400 SWAPO delegates will attend the party’s conference to decide leadership positions and so elect the presidential candidate. Until then a lot of campaigning and even more speculation about party-internal rivalling factions can be expected.</p>
<p>Geingob is in his first term in office. He is, in contrast to Zuma, eligible to be re-elected as Head of State provided he is confirmed as party president. His predecessor as Head of State and party president, Hifikepunye Pohamba, in a hitherto unprecedented move <a href="http://www.lelamobile.com/content/50386/Pohamba-resigns-as-Swapo-Party-president/">resigned as party president</a> when Geingob assumed office as Head of State. Party vice president Geingob then also became party president.</p>
<p>The SWAPO constitution makes no provision for such a transfer, so it’s a matter of controversy whether Geingob is – as his team claims – the official party president or the <a href="http://www.namibian.com.na/54660/read/Geingob-Mbumba-and-Swapo-Constitution">acting president</a>. Though no other candidates have yet publicly declared their intention to compete for the party presidency this year (and by implication nomination as presidential candidate for the country in 2019), there is no doubt th
at <a href="http://www.observer.com.na/index.php/national/item/8083-2017-swapo-congress">internal power struggles exist</a>. </p>
<p>As Geingob qualifies for a second term as Head of State, he may be elected unopposed and unanimously as party leader, unless internal factions put up another candidate. He has recently shown increased eagerness to ensure that his relative comparative advantage as office holder is consolidated. To further anchor a loyal network he has enlarged Parliament and his cabinet and <a href="http://africanarguments.org/2016/03/18/namibias-president-geingob-one-year-on-a-for-effort-d-for-performance/">appointed special advisers</a>. </p>
<p>The upper echelons of SWAPO are still largely dominated by first and second generation struggle stalwarts who returned from exile just prior to independence. There is growing resentment about this among a much <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/116/463/284/2760214/Changing-of-the-guard-An-anatomy-of-power-within?redirectedFrom=PDF">younger generation of activists</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169990/original/file-20170518-12217-qfvf0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169990/original/file-20170518-12217-qfvf0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=869&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169990/original/file-20170518-12217-qfvf0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=869&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169990/original/file-20170518-12217-qfvf0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=869&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169990/original/file-20170518-12217-qfvf0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1092&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169990/original/file-20170518-12217-qfvf0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1092&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169990/original/file-20170518-12217-qfvf0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1092&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>In South Africa, the ANC will elect new leaders at its national conference in December. The official ANC line is that campaigning for the party presidency has not begun. But Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Cyril Ramaphosa and others have already <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-04-26-who-wants-to-be-a-president-a-dummys-guide-to-the-2017-anc-leadership-race/#.WR1sFeuGM9c">started their campaigns</a> to succeed the scandal-ridden and now widely discredited Zuma.</p>
<p>Zuma has a strong personal interest in ensuring that his successor is loyal to him and will keep him out of jail if the charges against him – including fraud, racketeering and corruption – are <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2017/04/20/Zuma-and-NPA-appeal-hearings-against-reinstatement-of-783-criminal-charges-to-be-consolidated">reinstated</a>. He has now come out in support of his former wife, Dlamini-Zuma.</p>
<h2>Slide into populism</h2>
<p>Both Zuma and Geingob have recently adopted a more <a href="https://www.dandc.eu/en/article/populism-common-southern-africa-where-former-liberation-movements-have-become-dominant">populist rhetoric</a> in response to pressures within their parties and in the face of declining economies. Growth has come to a virtual standstill in both <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21710824-business-and-government-are-pulling-opposite-directions-growth-how">South Africa</a> and <a href="http://www.namibian.com.na/162219/archive-read/Economic-growth-slows-in-2016">Namibia</a>. </p>
<p>In the wake of this, Zuma has called for <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/opinion/radical-economic-transformation-not-in-good-hands-9118623">radical economic transformation</a>. Along with others loyal to him, he has said that the constitution should be changed to allow for land to be taken without compensation, in the interests of <a href="http://city-press.news24.com/News/land-reform-zuma-moves-for-expropriation-with-no-compensation-20170331">land reform</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly, under pressure within SWAPO, Geingob has paid tribute to Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and said that Namibia should learn from how Zimbabwe <a href="http://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/namibian-leader-praises-mugabe-applauds-controversial-land-reform-20170429">dealt with the land issue</a>. A land conference will be held in September, the second since independence. </p>
<p>By year’s end, the decisions taken at both parties’ congresses will indicate which policies associated with the election of the future presidents, both at party and state level, will shape the next few years. In both cases, the challenges are big and the stakes are high.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77887/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber is a member of SWAPO since 1974. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Saunders does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africa's ANC and Namibia's SWAPO, governing parties, enter crucial leadership elections this year, with presidents Zuma and Geingob both facing challenges.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaChris Saunders, Emeritus Professor, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/753612017-03-29T07:25:39Z2017-03-29T07:25:39ZAhmed Kathrada: a simple life full of love after 26 years of incarceration<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163089/original/image-20170329-1674-1fzeb0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ahmed Kathrada leaves a legacy filled with self-sacrifice and courage.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kopano Tlape/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/ahmed-kathrada">Ahmed Kathrada</a>, one of South Africa’s preeminent struggle stalwarts who has died at the age of 87, was best known to many as Kathy or Uncle Kathy. He was a most unassuming man. Shy and non-imposing, he would walk through his neighbourhood and if approached it would be like meeting an old family friend. He was warm and gentle, always leaving you with a smile. That’s how I came to know and love him. </p>
<p>His quiet demeanour belied a sharp and inquiring mind. Until his last days he was interested in politics always referring to himself as a political animal. He requested a meeting with <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/search?q=rhodes+must+fall">Rhodes Must Fall</a> activists, exchanging notes on history and activism.</p>
<p>Often he would remind me that “saints are sinners”. Part of being human we had a margin of error, allowing ourselves the right to self-correct but also to forgive. In many ways, he maintained a childlike innocence – always seeing the best in everyone. </p>
<p>Surrounding himself with strong and opinionated people, he married the fierce and courageous <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/barbara-anne-hogan">Barbara Hogan</a> whom he adored. She was also an anti-apartheid activist. He was most animated with Barbara and his godchildren, Mateo and Hari, sharing stories of domestic bliss including the famous “mouse in the house” that kept eating bits and pieces of his chocolates. Barbara entertained with good humour all his jabs, revealing a warm and tender relationship.</p>
<h2>A man who banished bitterness</h2>
<p>Kathrada <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/world/africa/ahmed-kathrada-dies-nelson-mandela.html?_r=0">spent 26 years</a> incarcerated by the apartheid regime, 18 of them on Robben Island, many alongside his friend Nelson Mandela. Barbara reminded me that his life after prison was good, simple but full of love and beauty. Surrounded by family and friends he kept his circle small and lived a humble life without seeking fame or fortune. </p>
<p>He was a role model for his nephews and nieces, never promoting family or friends because if you were worthy of that promotion you should earn it through good work. These values sometimes conflicted with other’s expectations of him. Yet he continued to maintain a strong hold on a simple freedom without being a slave to materialism or power. It was exactly this simple freedom that made his life exceptional.</p>
<p>He didn’t share many stories about the Island. But often he mentioned the unnaturalness of prison by measuring it against the lack of children’s voices. It was children and the youth that excited him. Especially his appreciation for beautiful young women, keeping everyone entertained and, in particular, the story of the young woman that pulled his face to show off her dimple for a selfie. </p>
<p>His hope for the future was a South Africa free of racism and poverty, talking about his wish to see every child in the country going to sleep in a warm bed, after eating a hot meal and waking up to go to school safely. Dignity was for him the cornerstone for human rights. Poverty and markers of marginalisation had to be eradicated so that dignity was ensured for all. </p>
<p>He was old fashioned but he knew that some principles such as the right to love whomever you chose was about restoring dignity. It was this approach that you recognised when you met him. He treated everyone with equal respect. </p>
<p>I was once full of anger and resentment; life had knocked me badly. He invited me to tea as was his custom when he needed to talk. In a gentle manner he spoke about a conscious choice he made not to be bitter when he came out of prison. He said bitterness only affects the person carrying it. Making me laugh, he said you can always tell a bitter person. It’s written on their face.</p>
<h2>Self-sacrifice and courage</h2>
<p>On reflective moments he would share some of his errors in judgement. In 1951/52 while living for a year in Budapest and working for the World Youth Federation Congress he came upon political prisoners working on a bridge on a cold winter’s night not sufficiently clothed and how he shamefully felt disgust for them. </p>
<p>Later these thoughts would haunt him as he became a political prisoner. He shifted from being a forceful and irreverent youth to being a measured and thoughtful person, never shying away from the politics of the day. He encouraged difference in opinions and reflected on them. It was this openness to see things from a fresh perspective that he encouraged discussions with young people, respecting divergence in historical memory. </p>
<p>He supported the release of political prisoners in Palestine and <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/rdm/politics/2017-03-28-kathradas-letter-to-zuma-submit-to-the-will-of-the-people-and-resign/">spoke out</a> against corruption and bad governance in South Africa. </p>
<p>History will be written from varying perspectives. His life and times will be written about in years to come and will be contested and challenged. Unlike other Rivonia Trialists who were sentenced to life imprisonment, he could have had a lighter sentencing. He chose life imprisonment out of loyalty with his comrades. </p>
<p>One thing is certain, he leaves a legacy that is filled with stories of self-sacrifice and courage. Even though much of the country’s history of the struggle is beginning to be forgotten, his is a legacy I hope South Africans can use as an example for a good life. He leaves a gaping hole in many hearts and his unwavering courage to speak out in matters of national interest will be missed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75361/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nadira Omarjee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Amed Kathrada's legacy can be used as an example for a good life. South Africans will miss his unwavering courage to speak out on matters of national interest.Nadira Omarjee, Visiting scholar of Sociology, Vrije Universiteit AmsterdamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/753392017-03-28T14:56:06Z2017-03-28T14:56:06ZAhmed Kathrada: exhibit A of the values imbued in South Africa's Freedom Charter<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162943/original/image-20170328-3793-gik1ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nelson Mandela and Ahmed Kathrada share a moment in South Africa&#39;s Parliament in 1999.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Another South African legend has gone. <a href="https://v1.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/bios/kathrada,a.htm">Ahmed ‘Uncle Kathy’ Kathrada</a>, an unassuming, quiet man who has left South Africans with a legacy that’s immediate, not historical.</p>
<p>Born in 1929, two factors mark his life and his passing, as they did for Nelson Mandela: he was <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/what-anc">African National Congress</a> through and through. And he was a non-racialist. The byline of the <a href="http://www.kathradafoundation.org/content/foundation">Kathrada Foundation</a>, a non-governmental organisation he established, is to ‘deepen non-racialism’. This is something he believed in to his core, even as others around him <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-mandela-foundations-verdict-on-the-mandela-era-it-failed-65257">began to argue</a> for an Africanist approach. </p>
<p>He was saddened that others, in an attempt to advocate for “colour-blindness” or more strident African nationalism, watered down the noble value of non-racialism. He maintained that non-racialism was a radical solidarity that at its very soul had undoing structural and interpersonal racism, and <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Non_Racialism_in_South_Africa.html?id=oI75kQEACAAJ&amp;redir_esc=y&amp;hl=en">wrote</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I would still insist that meeting the modern challenges of poverty, hunger, homelessness and so on requires an approach that has a non-racial outlook embedded within it. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Kathrada <a href="https://v1.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/bios/kathrada,a.htm">was arrested</a> in 1963 – his 18th arrest for political activities – and sentenced a year later, along with Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders, to life imprisonment at the end of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/rivonia-trial-1963-1964">Rivonia Trial</a>. He was 34 at the time. After 1994 Kathrada was Mandela’s political advisor in South Africa’s first democratic parliament.</p>
<p>Retirement for Uncle Kathy meant more political work, multiple engagements, setting up school, university and youth affiliates of the foundation, and then more work after that. Money was of no interest to him, nor honours or headlines. And he set a pace that most failed to maintain.</p>
<h2>Purity of political vocation</h2>
<p>His dogged, lifelong pursuit of equality and non-racialism remind many South Africans of how low they have fallen in the shadow of his generation. His passing happened on the same night that the country’s Minister and Deputy Minister of Finance were flying back to South Africa, <a href="http://www.businesslive.co.za/rdm/politics/2017-03-27-politics-live-zuma-enters-the-endgame-with-gordhan/">summarily ordered to do so</a> by the president, to the sound of the <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/27/south-africas-zuma-recalls-gordhan-from-international-roadshow.html">currency plummeting</a> and the economy <a href="http://www.fin24.com/Economy/sipho-pityana-gordhan-recall-is-economic-sabotage-20170327">reeling</a>. </p>
<p>Uncle Kathy passing at the same time as the national economy is being sacrificed for cheap personal and political gain will perhaps provide the spark that says to all South Africans: enough! Stop the rot! He did not struggle, sacrifice, and be released from prison to work even harder, to allow it all to be stolen in front of their eyes.</p>
<p>Uncle Kathy had an uncomplicated wisdom that will far outlast his living years. He believed in the purity of political vocation, despite knowing the tendency for the office to be sullied by political vanities. He believed that the human spirit could transcend physical walls meant to divide and imprison. He loved children and believed in the possibility of remaking society through them. </p>
<p>Yet he always reminded those around him that change, freedom or an anti-racist society would never be “delivered” to South Africans. Rather it would have to be wrought through the values, responsibility and integrity of the people. Although he was well-read in the complex art of politics and sociology, he had a matter-of-fact attitude to the challenges the society faced and what was needed to tackle them. </p>
<h2>Inspired at close quarters</h2>
<p>Working closely with him at the Kathrada Foundation offered many opportunities to be struck by the profound simplicity of the task that lay before us in doing our bit to build an equal and non-racial society. He reminded us all that what people thought mattered, and that our work needed to be based on these realities (uncomfortable as they may be).</p>
<p>While we continued the academic pursuits of meanings and interpretations of race, non-racialism, anti-racism and identities he reminded us that if our deliberations did not ultimately inspire the kind of pro-active work that made the prospects of an African child better than her parents’ had been, we had ultimately failed. </p>
<p>For some time, he had refrained from public political discourse that may have been controversial, but in the past two years, his sense of integrity compelled him <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2016/04/02/Ahmed-Kathrada-pens-a-letter-asking-Zuma-to-step-down">to publicly address</a> the ANC – his party – leadership. He was the kind of man that was Exhibit A of the values imbued in the Freedom Charter. He was saddened that his party had become a shadow of its former glorious self, and had come to taint that historic document. </p>
<p>A year ago, Kathy <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/rdm/politics/2017-03-28-kathradas-letter-to-zuma-submit-to-the-will-of-the-people-and-resign/">wrote to Zuma</a>, typically casting himself as merely “a loyal and disciplined member of the ANC and broader Congress movement since the 1940s” and admitting the pain that writing was causing him. He spoke directly to Zuma – and indirectly to South Africans:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The position of president is one that must at all times unite this country behind a vision and programme that seeks to make tomorrow a better day than today for all South Africans. Now that the court has found that the president failed to uphold‚ defend and respect the constitution as the supreme law‚ how should I relate to my president? If we are to continue to be guided by growing public opinion and the need to do the right thing‚ would he not seriously consider stepping down? I am not a political analyst‚ but I am now driven to ask: ‘Dear Comrade President‚ don’t you think your continued stay as president will only serve to deepen the crisis of confidence in the government of the country?’</p>
<p>And bluntly‚ if not arrogantly‚ in the face of such persistently widespread criticism‚ condemnation and demand‚ is it asking too much to express the hope that you will choose the correct way that is gaining momentum‚ to consider stepping down? If not‚ Comrade President‚ are you aware that your outstanding contribution to the liberation struggle stands to be severely tarnished if the remainder of your term as president continues to be dogged by crises and a growing public loss of confidence in the ANC and government as a whole?</p>
<p>I know that if I were in the president’s shoes‚ I would step down with immediate effect. To paraphrase the famous MK slogan of the time‚ there comes a time in the life of every nation when it must choose to submit or fight.
Today I appeal to our president to submit to the will of the people and resign.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He will remain, for many a warm, wise uncle, who did not succumb to political limelight, but was unapologetic about his lifelong responsibility – in everyday, and intimate interpersonal ways – to the unfinished project of freedom and liberation in South Africa and elsewhere in the world. And never, ever afraid of asking the difficult questions, or stating the truth as he saw it. </p>
<p>Hamba Kahle Malume (Rest in peace uncle), you are dearly loved. </p>
<p><em>Dr Caryn Abrahams, senior lecturer at the Wits School of Governance and former head of research at the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, contributed to this article</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75339/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Everatt is a member of the Board of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation.
Caryn Abrahams was formerly head of research at the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caryn Abrahams is a member f the Antiracism Network of South Africa (ARNSA)</span></em></p>South African struggle stalwart Ahmed Kathrada believed in non-racialism to his core, even as others around him began to argue for an Africanist approach.David Everatt, Head of Wits School of Governance, University of the WitwatersrandCaryn Abrahams, Senior lecturer, School of Governance, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/674082016-11-01T15:30:24Z2016-11-01T15:30:24ZWhy the notion of free higher education in South Africa is misplaced<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143698/original/image-20161028-15821-1eqjtt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A student passes South African riot police during free education protests at Johannesburg&#39;s University of the Witwatersrand. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the narratives that has fuelled continuing protests at South Africa’s universities is that students have been promised the right to <a href="http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/incoming/2015/10/23/time-to-deliver-free-education---sasco">free higher education</a>.</p>
<p>Threads of this narrative go back to the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/freedom-charter">Freedom Charter</a>, the statement of principles that guided the struggle for the liberation of South Africa. Others point to the country’s constitution and say that it contains a commitment to this <a href="http://www.sahrc.org.za/home/21/files/Reports/3rd%20ESR%20report%20chapter_3.pdf">promise</a>. And still others point to a <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/52nd-national-conference-resolutions">decision</a> taken by the ruling African National Congress a decade ago that promised this outcome.</p>
<p>But how much of this is true?</p>
<p>The charter and the constitution are carefully crafted. They do not specifically make reference to “free higher education” – a notion that has set both students and South African society down a cul de sac. It is this idea that has framed the continuing protests at our universities under the banner: “Free higher education in our lifetime”.</p>
<h2>What the charter and the constitution say</h2>
<p>Some students argue that the ANC has betrayed the promise of free higher education made in the <a href="http://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/HIST/freedomchart/freedomch.html">Freedom Charter</a>.</p>
<p>The charter states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The doors of learning and culture shall be opened. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But did the charter really talk about free education? Yes, it did – but only to the extent of basic education: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Higher education and technical training were imagined differently. Compared to universal access to basic education, the conceptual idea of “shall be free” was not used in the formulation that relates to higher education and technical training. This, it was envisaged, would be achieved “by means of state allowances and scholarships”. </p>
<p>Many aspects of the charter became part of the <a href="http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/images/a108-96.pdf">constitution</a> of the post-apartheid Republic of South Africa, a document lauded as one of the <a href="http://www.mistra.org.za/Library/ConferencePaper/Documents/Moseneke%20Keynote%20Address%20at%20the%2020%20Years%20of%20Democracy%20Conference%2012%20-%2013%20November%202014.pdf">best in the world</a>. Education is one of the socioeconomic rights enshrined in the constitution. It states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Everybody has the right to a basic education, including adult basic education; and to further education, which the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the terms of the provision of education are different compared with the other socio-economic rights. The constitution premises the feasibility of delivering the other rights on the availability of resources. The right to education doesn’t explicitly have this as a condition. Instead, the constitution provides that it should take place gradually.</p>
<p>The government has tried to <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/nzimande-sa-cannot-afford-free-tertiary-education">make</a> this point, but the university students are not having any of it. They continue to demand free higher education now. </p>
<p>But, why would they theme their protest around this notion when the constitution talks about the right to education, not free education? Perhaps the answer is that reading the constitution this way is tantamount to reductionism – the implication that the right to education necessarily means free education. </p>
<h2>Noble cause</h2>
<p>The students’ cause is noble. It tests the usefulness of the socioeconomic rights enshrined in the constitution, specifically the right to education. But what does free higher education actually mean?</p>
<p>Don’t existing state interventions – including a freeze on fee increases in 2015 and the recent commitment <a href="http:www.treasury.gov.za/documents/mtbps/2016/mtbps/MTBP%202016%20full%20Document.pdf">to provide further funding to students</a> – constitute “reasonable measures” for “progressive realisation” of the right to higher education? Isn’t the state in fact giving practical effect to this right?</p>
<p>The ructions on campuses are a clear indication that these questions are part of a fledgling society’s complexities. Students are saying “progressive realisation” of free higher education cannot be an endless pursuit without tangible milestones; hence their demand that the state commits itself to a time line.</p>
<h2>Reckless promises</h2>
<p>But possibly the biggest problem is that the promise of free higher education is a construct of the ANC’s rhetoric and populist policies. It is almost a decade since the party passed a resolution at its 52nd National Conference promising free higher education for the poor. <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/52nd-national-conference-resolutions">The resolution committed the party to</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Progressively introduce free education for the poor until undergraduate level.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Coupled with the initial promise that created expectations for free higher education, this policy objective fuelled students’ demands. They are saying this hasn’t yet been realised. The consequences of this decision are still being felt. The increasing state largesse and politicians’ reckless pronouncements for populist ends negate policy pragmatism. It can therefore be a curse for a party that revels in the sanctuary of being in power.</p>
<h2>Free education: a misnomer</h2>
<p>A <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/commissions/FeesHET/docs.html">Commission of Inquiry</a> has been instituted to investigate the feasibility of free higher education. </p>
<p>It is curious that a judicial inquiry was instituted given that the question being posed by university students isn’t a legal one. It is a political economy issue. I agree with education policy expert Nico Cloete, that the Commission is <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wrong-questions-are-being-asked-in-the-free-higher-education-debate-66085">“asking the wrong question”</a>. </p>
<p>Free higher education is a misnomer. It is part of the seductive political language of “free this, free that”. That one does not directly pay for a public good doesn’t mean it is free. It is paid for by the state with citizens’ money – taxes. What the country should be talking about is state-funded higher education, not free education.</p>
<p>Like all largesse that carries the qualifier “free”, the notion of free higher education wittingly or unwittingly spawns entitlement and the culture of freebies. </p>
<p>A good example of this is the way in which some students are responding to the repayment of their loans from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme. Some are reneging on repaying their loans despite the fact that they are in a position to do so. How do they think the scheme is to be sustained? </p>
<p>The scheme’s very existence is threatened. In 2014, as it emerged in the fee commission, the scheme recorded its lowest ever level of debt recovery <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-Africa/catch-it-live-blade-nzimande-at-fees-commission">at 4%</a>. If this example is anything to go by, free higher education is a dangerous notion. Let’s rather replace it with state-funded higher education. This is a much bigger concept and one which can galvanise a historical commitment that all South Africans are responsible for ensuring education is a public good.</p>
<p>The problem is not with the substance of the students’ demand, but with the concept and language of its expression – which populist politics aid and abet to distort the discourse.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67408/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mashupye Herbert Maserumule received funding from National Research Foundation(NRF) for his post-graduate studies. He is affiliated with the South African Association of Public Administration and Management(SAAPAM) and the Chief Editor of the Journal of Public Administration.</span></em></p>Some students argue wrongly that the ANC has betrayed the promise of free higher education made in the Freedom Charter. The governing party's populism is also to blame for the confusion.Mashupye Herbert Maserumule, Professor of Public Affairs, Tshwane University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/436472015-06-25T04:48:00Z2015-06-25T04:48:00ZThe legacy of South Africa's Freedom Charter 60 years later<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86128/original/image-20150623-19371-140z44j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The more than two million houses built by the state and transferred to the residents as freehold property, many with solar energy, are the most visible of the Freedom Charter’s achievements.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year marks the 60th anniversary of the <a href="http://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/HIST/freedomchart/freedomch.html">Freedom Charter</a> in South Africa, a document that triggered a paradigm shift in thinking about the democratic rights of black South Africans and their protection under the law.</p>
<p>The Freedom Charter starts off with a preamble evoking the US Declaration of Independence:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know: that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is followed by ten sections. Five demand the classical human rights of the great liberal 18th-century revolutions such as the <a href="http://global.britannica.com/event/French-Revolution">French revolution</a>; the other five demand the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/field_01.shtml">welfare benefits</a> and policies demanded by 19th-century trade unions, socialists, and other social reformers.</p>
<h2>The Charter’s life post adoption</h2>
<p>The Freedom Charter was adopted at a meeting of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/significance-congress-people-and-freedom-charter">Congress Alliance</a>, comprising the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Indian Congress, the Coloured People’s Congress, the South African Congress of Trade Unions, and the Congress of Democrats – the so-called the Congress of the People – on June 25-26, 1955. </p>
<p>The apartheid political police dealing with political activists as well as prosecutors were the first to react to the charter’s adoption. They <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/04lv01600/05lv01615/06lv01616.htm">charged</a> the organisers of the congress with treason on the grounds that demanding universal franchise implied revolution to overthrow the state. The government of the day had no intention of granting democracy. The 156 accused were found not guilty after a trial lasting five years. It is still the South African record for the length of a criminal prosecution.</p>
<p>Controversies over the Freedom Charter’s compilation, formulation, and implementation have continued episodically ever since. Often, these polemics tell us more about the polemicists themselves than about the Freedom Charter: the bee in their respective bonnets range from <a href="http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/the-cold-war/what-was-the-cold-war/">Cold War</a> dinosaurs to <a href="http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/what_is_marxism.php">Marxist</a> theorists.</p>
<p>The Africanist wing of the ANC cited the Freedom Charter as a major reason for them splitting from the ANC in 1959 to found the <a href="http://www.pac.org.za/">Pan Africanist Congress of Azania</a>.</p>
<p>But for the great majority of ANC members and sympathisers, the Freedom Charter grew to have iconic status. Throughout the three decades during which the ANC was banned it was circulated clandestinely as an inspirational and aspirational document. It was widely used to attract supporters and mobilise people to back the ANC and the liberation struggle.</p>
<p>After the unbanning of liberation movements in 1990, the ANC elaborated the three-page Freedom Charter into a 50-page <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=227">Ready to Govern</a> paperback. Its 1994 <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=262">election manifesto</a> included a 100-page Reconstruction and Development Programme, which further enlarged the charter.</p>
<h2>The Freedom Charter post democracy</h2>
<p>This will be the last big-number anniversary of the Freedom Charter for living veterans of its adoption such as the octogenarians <a href="http://www.constitutionalcourt.org.za/site/judges/justicealbiesachs/index1.html">Albie Sachs</a>, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/ben-turok">Ben Turok</a>, and <a href="http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/authors.php?auid=44927">Mervyn Bennun</a>.</p>
<p>Is their legacy one they can be proud of?</p>
<p>South Africa is now a <a href="http://www.parliament.gov.za/live/content.php?Category_ID=11">constitutional democracy</a> with an entrenched <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng-02.pdf">Bill of Rights</a> embedding all the Freedom Charter demands that the people shall govern, all shall be equal before the law, and that all shall enjoy equal human rights. </p>
<p>The South African judiciary has been given powers equalled in very few other democracies, such as the ability to annul statutes of parliament. Only in <a href="http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/chejudis.asp">India</a> and the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/14-275">US</a> do judgments cause as many political controversies with rulings against the government.</p>
<p>Driving into any South African city, town or village today one’s first sight is usually of some of the more than two million houses built by the state and transferred to the residents as freehold property. The more recent developments boast solar heaters on their roofs. This is the most physical and visible of the Freedom Charter’s achievements: there shall be houses, security and comfort.</p>
<p>University enrolments have <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140425131554856">doubled</a>, and college numbers risen higher thanks to massive increases in state bursaries. There can, however, be no excuse for nine-tenths of schools still lacking working libraries and laboratories.</p>
<p>The biggest controversies have swirled around Freedom Charter demands for <a href="http://www.polity.org.za/article/nationalisation-and-the-freedom-charter-2011-06-28">nationalisation</a> policies which were widespread in the UK in the 1940s, India in the 1950s and among African nationalists of the 1960s. They are rare in 2015. A variety of leftist organisations have advocated compiling a Workers’ Charter, a Women’s Charter, and others, but none have yet come to fruition. </p>
<p>The government’s actual policies have shifted over the decades. During the late 1990s it attempted to privatise <a href="http://www.sa-airlines.co.za/South-African-Airways.html">South African Airways</a>, the national airline; <a href="http://www.telkom.co.za/sites/aboutus/companyinfo/companyprofile/companyprofile/">Telkom</a>, the partially state-owned telecommunications utility; and state-owned railway buses and holiday resorts. It debated, but did not, privatise <a href="http://www.eskom.co.za/Pages/Landing.aspx">Eskom</a>, the electricity utility. The state also gave a concession to a private security firm to build and operate two prisons. These policies had mixed successes and failures. </p>
<p>The government continues to reject calls for nationalisation from the <a href="http://effighters.org.za/policy/nationalisation-of-mines/">Economic Freedom Fighters</a>, the <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-03-25-born-in-post-marikana-anger-workers-socialist-party-enters-sa-politics/#.VYlpmPmqqko">Workers &amp; Socialist Party</a> and the <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/enough-is-enough-united-front-launch-1.1788433#.VYlqGvmqqko">United Front</a>. Its focus is rather on pressuring the corporate sector to allocate heavily discounted shares to private black entrepreneurs. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86133/original/image-20150623-19431-wbbq23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86133/original/image-20150623-19431-wbbq23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86133/original/image-20150623-19431-wbbq23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86133/original/image-20150623-19431-wbbq23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86133/original/image-20150623-19431-wbbq23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86133/original/image-20150623-19431-wbbq23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86133/original/image-20150623-19431-wbbq23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thousands queue to register for a state relief grant for the jobless in Guguletu, Cape Town.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>South Africa is furthest away from achieving Freedom Charter aspirations such as: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There shall be work and security!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>An <a href="http://www.tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/unemployment-rate">unemployment</a> rate that’s stubbornly high at 26,40%, with half of youth remaining unemployed, means South Africa shares this devastating problem with countries such as Greece and Spain. Mass prolonged unemployment results in social pathologies ranging from the crime wave to alcoholism. A huge increase in artisanal apprenticeships and colleges is key to mitigating this, alongside the existing <a href="http://www.epwp.gov.za/">Expanded Public Works Programmes</a>.</p>
<p>Obvious problems that remain include a <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2015-06-10-fdf">police force</a> involved in killing, assaults, torture, reminiscent of the repeated US police controversies. The <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/saps-to-be-demilitarised-phiyega-1.1492190#.VYkjYfmqqko">demilitarisation</a> of the police needs to include a transformation of police culture to evidence-based procedure and service mindset.</p>
<p>A lingering controversy concerns the Government’s three attempts to <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africans-braced-for-new-confrontation-with-government-over-controversial-law-42829">push</a> the Traditional Courts Bill through parliament. The <a href="http://www.issafrica.org/publications/south-african-crime-quarterly/south-african-crime-quarterly-35/sacq-35-beyond-the-traditional-courts-bill-regulating-customary-courts-in-line-with-customary-law-and-the-constitution-sindiso-mnisi-weeks">bill</a> seeks to give apartheid-style powers to traditional courts run by hereditary, patriarchal chiefs. Only six women are chiefs in their own right, out of 700 hereditary rulers.</p>
<p>Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty – and all other policies and entitlements worth fighting for. These struggles form the permanent bread and butter of democratic contestation – in both the oldest and the youngest democracies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43647/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is affiliated with African National Congress.</span></em></p>The Freedom Charter, adopted at a meeting in Soweto on June 25-26 1955, triggered a paradigm shift in thinking about the democratic rights of black South Africans and their protection under the law.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.